General Motors deal saves one plant, union says, but 3 others to stay shut
Union leaders begin to hash out terms as walkout continues
DETROIT » General Motors has agreed to continue production at a Detroit plant it had planned to shut down, but will not resume operations at three others recently idled, the United Automobile Workers union said Thursday in announcing the terms of a tentative contract agreement.
The details were released as leaders of the union’s GM locals gathered in Detroit to learn and consider the terms. If they accept the tentative agreement, they could call an immediate end to a monthlong strike. They could also continue the walkout until the deal is ratified by a majority of the 49,000 UAW members employed by GM.
According to a summary posted online by the union, the deal includes wage increases and a formula for allowing temporary workers to become fulltime employees.
It would also keep open the Detroit- Hamtramck plant, which GM had said it
would close. It does not reverse plans for three other plants where production has ceased, including one in Lordstown, Ohio, but provides retirement incentives for workers displaced there.
When it announced the tentative accord Wednesday, the UAW said it had “achieved major wins.” According to the online summary, the agreement has these provisions:
A 3% wage increase in the second and fourth years of the contract, and a 4% lumpsum payment in the first and third years.
A shortened path to permanent status for full-time temporary workers, beginning in 2020, and a path for part-time temporary employees to convert to regular status, starting in 2021.
No change to the health care plan and no additional costs.
An $11,000 ratification bonus for “seniority employees,” and a $4,500 bonus for temporary employees.
The elimination of a $12,000 cap on profit-sharing payouts.
Ratification of the agreement is not a foregone conclusion. The last time the UAW negotiated a contract with GM, approval was delayed for a month in part because the automaker’s skilled-trades workers rejected the terms.
A rejection of the proposed contract would be a rebuke for the UAW president, Gary Jones, and his negotiating team.
“If the rank-and-file vote down an agreement their leaders send them, they also are voting down the leaders,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan who follows the auto industry. “Workers may ask whether it was worth being out of work a month to get a deal that could be close to what they would have gotten with no strike and no loss of pay.”
There were signs of dissent from union members outside the Renaissance Center office complex, where GM is headquartered and the contract negotiations took place. As the roughly 200 union officials who will vote on the proposed contract arrived for the meeting, they were greeted by about 30 workers from the Lordstown plant in red T-shirts shouting, “Vote no!”