The (United Auto Workers) UAW Union labor deals have been overwhelmingly ratified by members for new contracts with Ford and Stellantis.
Alongside a similar agreement with General Motors, these UAW Union labor deals will elevate industry-wide wages, impose higher costs on automakers, and play a crucial role in the auto industry's shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
The agreement was approved by 68.8% of Stellantis, the manufacturer of Jeep, Dodge, and Ram vehicles employees.
A contentious labor dispute that involved derogatory language and a sequence of retaliatory strikes that incurred substantial expenses for the employers but resulted in significant increases in compensation and benefits for UAW employees was successfully resolved with their approval.
At Stellantis, the agreement was approved by an estimated 10,000 votes as the counting of ballots concluded on Saturday afternoon.
As of early Saturday morning, the accord had garnered the support of 69.3% of Ford employees, a margin of nearly 15,000. Earlier this week, GM employees narrowly ratified a comparable contract.
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Significant opposition despite the UAW Union Labor Deals Agreement
Despite the endorsement of the transactions by the three corporations, a significant portion of the membership has expressed opposition. According to the UAW, over a dozen GM facilities and factory employees voted against the agreement.
Although opposition was less concentrated at Ford and Stellantis, it did include employees of the company's largest facility, the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, for Ford. Three Stellantis facilities. It consists of the Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, among the initial factories to go on strike on September 15 and voted against the agreement.
The level of support for the three agreements was comparatively lower than that of other prominent labor contracts that have occurred recently.
In August, 86% of Teamsters voted in favor of an agreement with UPS that would have covered 340,000 hourly workers. Additionally, earlier this month, 98.5% of Kaiser Permanente union members voted in favor of a deal that covered 85,000 members.
Nonetheless, the ballots cast at the three unionized automakers in the United States are sufficient to eliminate any further possibility of strikes against the Detroit automakers.
New Contract Agreement
The new contract agreements were generally regarded as a UAW victory. The agreement between the companies was to substantially increase the compensation of high-level assembly plant employees by 33 percent due to cost-of-living adjustments and salary increases. Prominent employees of the assembly facility will be granted immediate 11% raises, resulting in an estimated hourly wage of $42 by April 2028, when their contracts conclude.
As part of the agreements, the automakers ceased implementing numerous tiers of compensation that they had previously administered to distinct employees.
In addition, they reached a preliminary agreement to include new battery facilities for electric vehicles in the national union contract. The UAW will have the opportunity to unionize EV battery facilities under this provision, accounting for an increasing proportion of industry employment in the coming years.
"I consider the ratification of all three contracts by the UAW to be a tremendous victory," said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University. "It raises the concerns of a significant number of autoworkers."
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