Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
GM, workers have tentative contract
DETROIT — A tentative four-year contract with General Motors gives workers a mix of pay raises, lump sum payments and an $11,000 signing bonus.
In return, the contract allows GM to proceed with factory closures in Lordstown, Ohio, Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore.
Details were posted Thursday on the United Auto Workers website as factory level union officials met to decide if they’ll approve the deal. Workers went on strike Sept. 16, crippling the company’s U.S. production and costing it an estimated $2 billion.
The Detroit Hamtramck plant, which GM wanted to close, will stay open and a new electric pickup truck will be built there.
Factory-level officials from the United Auto Workers union voted to recommend the agreement to members Thursday in Detroit. But they also voted not to return to factories unless members approve the deal. Striking workers will stay on the picket lines for several more days until they vote on the tentative contract agreement.
Meanwhile, the Lordstown area will get a new battery factory that is expected to employ 1,000 workers. In addition, a company called Lordstown Motors could also set up a factory that would initially employ 400 workers.
But neither of those would come close to the shuttered Lordstown assembly plant, which two years ago employed 4,500 people making the Chevrolet Cruze compact car.
The deal shortens the eight years it takes for new hires to reach full wages and gives temporary workers a full-time job after three years of continuous work. Workers hired after 2007 who are paid a lower wage rate will hit the top wage of $32.32 per hour in four years or less. The deal also provides a $60,000 early retirement incentive for up to 2,000 eligible workers. Additionally, the agreement dissolves the GM Center for Human Resources, a jointly operated training center with the union that is funded by the automaker.