More UAW workers at GM plants, including Wentzville, OK contract

A majority of the 52,600 union workers at General Motors have voted in favor of a new four-year contract, but that wasn’t enough to finalize a deal.

Ford plant leaders will meet Monday in Detroit to discuss the agreement. But it is believed its terms are closer to those of the GM agreement than the deal at Fiat Chrysler. Until then UAW President Dennis Williams can’t give GM formal notice that the contract is ratified. Production workers OK’d the pact with 58 percent in favor, but 59 percent of skilled-trades workers voted against it. Workers at several factories subsequently rejected during the initial round of voting.

Locals 1112 and 1714 that represent GM’s Lordstown, Ohio plant voted yes by 72 percent and 66 percent, respectively.

After months of back-and-forth talks, threats and deadlines, the United Auto Workers have, tentatively, reached new labor agreements with all the Detroit Three automakers.

UAW officials are under significant pressure to get the GM deal ratified after having run into resistance to a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles deal in October.

The company spent $7 billion on its US union labor previous year, down from $18 billion in 1999, according to the Center for Automotive Research. Ford’s deal is expected to match raises at GM and Chrysler, which includes boosting entry-level workers pay over eight years to more than $29 an hour to match the wages of senior workers.

UAW members have bristled at accepting any deal that maintains the two-tier wage structure that kept workers hired after 2007 from reaching the same base wage scale as more senior workers. “Our union leadership team has bargained one of the best contracts I have seen in the last three National agreements”. Temporary workers can vote on the agreement. All in-progression employees are moved to traditional health care plan. And the profit-sharing formula in GM’s proposed agreement promises $1,000 per $1 billion of GM’s North American profits.

GM’s proposed contract also offers $60,000 for up to 4,000 eligible employees who agree to retire next spring.