SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- The United Auto Workers union voted to approve new contracts with Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., wrapping up five months of negotiations. Ford's U.S. union workers voted to accept a four-year contract that included across-the-board raises, $9 billion in factory investments and $10,000 in bonuses per member.
The deal was ratified by 51.3 percent of production workers and 52.4 percent of skilled-trades workers, the UAW said late Friday in an emailed statement.
"This agreement provides a good foundation for Ford Motor Company, our employees and our communities as we work together to create an even stronger business in the years ahead," John Fleming, Ford's executive vice president of global manufacturing and labor affairs, said in an emailed statement.
GM got its agreement with the union ratified without adding significant costs to the contract after revising some work rules to appease the skilled-trades employees.
The accord had hit a snag earlier this month. Although a majority of UAW members voted in favor, the skilled-trades group -- which includes employees such as plumbers, electricians and millwrights -- within the union rejected it. UAW rules require approval from production workers and the trades group but gives the leadership override authority if there's majority support.
Union leaders met with GM, which agreed to changes that protect core trades classifications and seniority rights, the UAW said Friday in a statement. The union's council of local leaders concluded that the skilled-trades issues were addressed and gave it their unanimous support.
UAW members have demanded a greater payback for helping the companies survive the recession. Workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV turned down the first contract offer in September, sending the union's negotiators back to the bargaining table for a sweeter deal that passed by a 3-to-1 margin. At Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford, the only Detroit-area automaker not to go bankrupt in 2009, the 52,900 UAW members expected even more.
"After all the sacrifices and all the years of concessions, now is the time to get it back, and people felt they weren't getting enough back," said Gary Walkowicz, a union bargaining committeeman at Ford's F-150 truck factory in Dearborn, who encouraged workers to turn down the deal. "If not now, when will we get it back?"
With vehicle sales booming and the companies making billions, autoworker expectations have been high. Veteran workers went almost a decade without raises, while new hires started on "second-tier" wages that were half what senior staff earned. Leading up to negotiations this year, UAW President Dennis Williams repeatedly promised workers that this round of talks represented "our time" to recover what had been given up.
The Ford agreement, patterned on deals at Fiat Chrysler and GM, provides a path for newer workers to climb to senior wages, about $29 an hour, over an eight-year period. Those second-tier workers had topped out just above $19 an hour. Veteran workers will receive 3 percent pay increases in the first and third year of the accord and 4 percent lump-sum payments in the second and fourth years.
"There was a lot of pressure for more raises and to get rid of the second tier even faster," said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Expectations were not managed well and actually were raised by the UAW with 'it's our time"' rhetoric.
The U.S. industry faces new challenges, with the highest labor costs in North America and the companies increasingly willing to move production to Mexico, Dziczek said. The UAW also doesn't have the clout it once did. As the three automakers' dominance of the U.S. market has declined over the decades, so has the union's membership and power.
"We used to have 97 percent of the market and now we've got 47 percent, so it's not like it was," said Bernie Ricke, president of UAW Local 600, which represents workers at the F-150 truck plant in Dearborn.
The Ford deal, the richest of the three contracts, promises $9 billion in factory upgrades and expansions that create or preserve 8,500 jobs in the U.S.
"At the bargaining table, you can get raises or you can get jobs," Dziczek said. "The union negotiators tried to get both, but workers wanted more raises."
The Ford contract includes $10,000 in bonuses upon ratification. Wage increases of $10,633 and a variety of bonuses and guaranteed payouts will boost the average Ford production worker's pay by $32,513 over the life of the contract, according to the union. Skilled-trades workers' total compensation will grow an average of $35,098 over four years, the union said. Those calculations don't include profit-sharing, which totaled more than $30,000 a worker during the past four years.
A Section on 11/22/2015