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DETROIT (AP) — General Motors and the United Auto Workers union have reached a tentative agreement that could end a six-week strike against Detroit automakers, two more people briefed on the deal said Monday.
The deal follows the trend set with Ford last week and with Jeep maker Stellantis this weekend.
WATCH NOW: Autoworkers’ union president says action will continue to win company deals
The agreements will last for 4 years and 8 months and will come with 25% across-the-board wage increases in line with penny and cost-of-living adjustments. Together, they increase the salary by up to more than 30% over the life of the contract.
People briefed on the matter, who did not want to be known because they were not legally allowed to speak publicly about the deal, said the deal was expected to be announced early Monday.
The contract with GM is similar to those signed through the other two automakers, although there are some differences.
GM was the latest company to reach an agreement, and the union added a lucrative Tennessee plant to the strike list Saturday to ratchet up the pressure. The UAW reached a tentative agreement last week with Ford and wasted no time in hitting GM on what hurts. Financially.
Nearly 4,000 unionized employees walked off the job Saturday at GM’s largest North American plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, hours after the deal with Stellantis was announced. They joined about 14,000 GM employees who were already on strike at plants in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.
President Joe Biden asked about the deal on Monday, as he returned to the White House aboard Air Force One. He gave a thumbs up and said, “I think it’s fantastic. “
Also on Monday, 8,200 Stellantis employees in Canada represented through the Unifor union briefly went on strike before striking an agreement that included base hourly wage increases of about 20 cents per hour for production staff. Workers at General Motors and Ford in Canada have already voted to ratify a three-year contract with the company.
Spring Hill, the plant where staff protested Saturday, produces engines for cars assembled at nine plants as far away as Mexico, adding Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks. It’s a big source of cash for GM that could have potentially amplified the company’s money woes after staff walked off the job last week in Arlington, Texas, where full-size SUVs are produced, adding the Tahoe and Suburban. Spring Hill also produces the Cadillac Lyriq, GMC Acadia and Cadillac electric crossover SUVs.
Ford union presidents voted unanimously Sunday in Detroit to approve the tentative contract after UAW President Shawn Fain explained the details, the union tweeted.
While explaining the main points to the entire club in a subsequent live broadcast, Fain, along with UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, said the agreement represented a “historic turning point” in reviving union strength in a United States where “we were being left behind. “for an economy that works for the billionaire class.
“UAW members at Ford will get more across-the-board wage increases over the next four and a half years than we’ve gotten in the last 22 years combined,” Browning said.
Fain called the deal “a turning point in the war of elegance that has been waged in this country for 40 years. “
Ford and Stellantis’ agreements, which will run through April 30, 2028, provide for an across-the-board 25% wage increase for key assembly plant workers, with 11% added once the deal is ratified.
The agreement with Ford reinstates cost-of-living changes that the UAW agreed to suspend in 2009 during the Great Recession.
At Stellantis, staff are paid a cost-of-living wage that would generate raises at a compound rate of 33%, and the most no-nonsense staff on the meeting floor would earn more than $42 an hour. Senior staff now earn about $31 an hour.
Starting salaries for Stellantis’ new hires will increase by as much as 67%, adding cost-of-living changes to more than $30 per hour. Temporary staff will get an increase of more than 165%, while staff at spare parts centers will get a prompt accumulation of 76% if the contract is ratified.
As with the Ford deal, it will take just three years for new staff to reach the most sensible pay scale, the union said. Similarly, the union won the right to strike in opposition to factory closures.
Bruce Baumhower, president of the local union at a giant Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, which has been on strike since September, said he expects staff to vote to approve the deal because of the wage increases, adding that the rapid 11% increase following ratification. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a historic agreement. “
The UAW introduced targeted measures against the three automakers on Sept. 15 after their contracts with the corporations expired. At the height of the movement, about 46,000 UAWs were on strike, about a third of the union’s 146,000 members in the three corporations.
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