UAW vice president still optimistic tentative contact with Ford will be

And 78 percent of skilled tradesman at the plant voted against it. The UAW needs a majority of votes for the contract to be ratified. Officially, the UAW won’t say until all of the workers have voted.

Scott Houldieson, vice president of Local 551 in Chicago, where workers voted Wednesday, said members who were rejecting the contract believed it did not make up for the sacrifices that helped save Ford. A few wrote that they were ready to go on strike. So far, more than half of the roughly 75% of Ford’s union members who voted have rejected the deal.

GM said it is hopeful the deal will still be approved.

GM workers would keep the outgoing contract’s profit sharing structure of $1,000 per $1 billion in GM North American profit. “That’s one time and it goes away”, he said. “Wage increases are what built the middle class in this country”. “So you are negotiating everything all over again”, Settles said.

“We’re optimistic”, Settles said. “It looks dark now, but it might be light in the morning”, he said.

It’s unusual for the union to call a press conference in the midst of voting, but in recent days the “no” votes have begun to mount.

Dennis Williams, the president of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) have announced in a press release that they will be extending the deadline for the ratification of the deal the union made with General Motors Company (GM).

The UAW has been thwarted for decades in its bid to represent workers at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South. The February 2014 vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga was seen as the union’s best chance because of strong labor influence on the German automaker’s board.

Samples said voting at Ford’s 22 USA plants represented by the UAW is expected to be completed later this week.

Ford has promised to invest $900 million in the Chicago plant and to add 200 union jobs there if the deal is ratified.

The Fiat Chrysler contract set a pattern followed by GM and Ford, which essentially ends a two-tiered system that paid UAW members hired after 2007 less than those hired before that year.

What if workers reject the deal? .

“I was on the fence, and now I’m going to vote no”, Mr. Schulte said.

Only two assembly plants have voted in favor of the agreement: Ohio Assembly, where 52 percent voted “yes”, and MI Assembly, where 81 percent were in favor. The F-150 also is produced at the Dearborn assembly plant in MI.

“If Ford can put $9 billion in the US, it can put $9 billion in Mexico”, she said. “We worked hard to secure an agreement that provides a clear path to traditional wages for all members and substantial raises for traditional members for the first time in 10 years”.

The company says that won’t have an impact for jobs – it’s more to free up space to make the Ford Escape.