UAW leaders send deal with GM to workers for ratification vote; strike continues

The UAW National General Motors Council decided Thursday to recommend ratification of a tentative agreement with GM, but to leave 46,000 workers on strike while they vote on the deal.

UAW-represented workers at 55 GM facilities in 10 states have been on strike since 12:01 a.m. Sept. 16, costing GM nearly a half-billion dollars a week.

Union spokesman Brian Rothenberg said ratification meetings would start Saturday, with ballots expected to be turned in eight days from now.

General Motors said it encouraged the UAW to "move as quickly as possible through the ratification process, so we can resume operations and get back to producing vehicles for our customers. Our goal during these negotiations was to ensure that the future of General Motors is one that works for our employees, dealers, suppliers and the communities where we operate. The agreement reflects our commitment to U.S. manufacturing through the creation of new jobs and increased investment.”

GM and the UAW reached a proposed tentative agreement on a new, four-year contract Wednesday, the 31st day of a nationwide strike. This is the union's first strike since 2007 and the longest against GM since 1970.

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The union appears to have won on many of its goals, including a path to permanent employment for temporary autoworkers, a faster route to top pay for workers hired after 2007. Workers will continue to pay only 3% of their health care costs, well below the national average of 28%.

"We went on a strike for a path for temp workers and a fair share of the profits," Rothenberg said. "The contract gives full-time temp workers a shortened path to permanent status."

UAW-represented GM workers will get a bonus of $11,000 upon ratification of the deal. Temporary workers get $4,500.

The biggest obvious loss for the union is the continued closure of the Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio – a sore point that former Lordstown workers rallying Thursday in Detroit said would cause them to vote against the deal.

Highlights of the deal

The UAW on Thursday released a summary of the tentative agreement. Highlights include:

• GM will invest in U.S. facilities to create and retain 9,000 jobs. While a dollar amount was not in the summary, people familiar with the agreement said GM pledged investment of $7.7 billion over the life of the deal.

• Worker health-care costs are unchanged.

• Wage increases of 3% in the second and fourth year of the contract, with 4% lump sum payments in the first and third years.

• Lordstown is to remain closed.

• Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant will be retooled for a new product, which people familiar with the pact said is an electric pickup.

• Temporary workers, who have been paid $15-19 an hour with inferior benefits to permanent autoworkers, get a path to a permanent role starting next year. Part-time workers get a path to regular status starting in 2021. These workers also get improved paid and unpaid time off.

• So-called in-progression workers hired after 2007 get a faster path to top pay. Under the previous contract, those workers started at $17 an hour, reaching $28/hour after eight years. Under the proposal, that is shortened to four years and by September 2023, all permanent manufacturing employees will be at $32.32 per hour.

Rothenberg said sessions to outline the tentative agreement to workers are being scheduled around the country. "The local unions run that and UAW will provide instructions to the local unions later,” he said.

A person familiar with the process told The Free Press that the ratification vote must be concluded by 4:30 p.m. Oct. 25.

Union will continue fight

The roots of the strike were both in the recession a decade ago, when the union made concessions that members felt like they never got back and in November 2018. The UAW was angered then, when GM announced plans to idle four U.S. plants, including Lordstown and Detroit-Hamtramck. Transmission plants in Warren and Baltimore also were on that list and will remain closed.

“It is with sadness that, with this agreement, three of those four facilities will close," a union summary of the agreement said.

“We’ll continue to make our effort to fight for these jobs in America," Rothenberg said. "I think our national negotiators did everything they could and we tried to do our best for the workers in those plants by getting the assistance packages that we did. I think all of our leaders understand.”

People inside Thursday's nearly six-hour National Council meeting characterized it as heavy discussion over several topics, but “not heated.”

“If you’ve ever been in a UAW meeting, everybody wanted their chance to talk,” Rothenberg said.

Workers were adamant that temporary employees should get a better deal from GM. The union during the recession a decade ago agreed to expanded hiring of temps by GM, Ford and what then was Chrysler. The carmakers contend temps are needed to help close the gap in their all-in labor costs with foreign-based companies that build vehicles in the United States with nonunion labor, a difference of about $13 an hour.

The final days of negotiations focused on what the automaker would commit to build at U.S. plants over the four-year life of the new contract. The union pressed for internal combustion vehicle commitments even as GM says it is moving toward an electric future and continues low-cost Mexican production of SUVs and pickups for U.S. sale. The 9,000-promise, while some likely will be in joint ventures that pay less than direct GM employment, is a significant increase from the 5,400 jobs in GM's initial proposal.

Separately, about 850 janitors employed by Aramark and represented by the UAW have been on strike since 12:01 a.m. Sept. 15, one day prior to GM union workers going on strike.

The UAW reached a tentative contract with Aramark on Thursday. Aramark manages service jobs at five GM sites: Flint Assembly, Flint Engine Operations, Flint Metal Center; the Metal Center Parma, Ohio, and the Technical Center in Warren.

Estimates of the costs of the strike have varied, but Ann Arbor's Center for Automotive Research estimated:

• GM was losing $450 million per week.

• More than 575,000 workers nationwide are in industries directly or indirectly affected by the UAW strike, including supplier firms to GM and firms in the broader economy where striking and laid-off workers shop.

• Lost wages each week of some $857 million.

• Lost tax revenue includes $114 million in personal income tax and $108 million in lost revenue that supports social insurance programs such as Medicare and unemployment insurance.

At least 10,000 workers for GM suppliers and company factories in Mexico and Canada also have been laid off because of the strike.

Follow Jamie L. LaReau on Twitter: @jlareauan.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: GM strike continues: UAW sends deal to workers for ratification vote