“We won this round,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video address Saturday. “This contract will change thousands of lives overnight.”
Now that preliminary approvals for all three contracts have been completed, UAW leaders will spend the next two weeks working to win a “yes” from rank-and-file union members in the Detroit Three.
The deal’s key economic provisions follow the pattern established at Ford (NYSE ) and Chrysler parent Stellantis (NYSE ), providing 25% base pay increases for full-time workers, which could add up to 33%, including the newly negotiated cost -Subsistence allowances.
Temporary workers will have a faster path to full-time status and could see their salaries increase by about 50% immediately. Temporary workers who transition to full-time work could more than double their hourly wages over the life of the agreement, the UAW said.
The deal with GM will move more than 7,000 UAW workers at GM component plants, parts warehouses and what GM calls “subsystem” operations to the higher wage levels paid to assembly plant workers.
The new contract would largely undo a strategy the automaker has used for years to keep labor costs down, UAW officials said.
“This contract has pay increases and economic gains like we’ve never seen before,” said UAW Vice President Mike Booth. “The profits from this contract are worth more than four times those of the last contract.”
Under the agreement, the starting base salary for full-time members will increase over the life of the contract by approximately 70% to $30.60 per hour, and by approximately 33% to $42.95 per hour for salaried earners. taller, Fain said.
Workers’ progress toward the maximum wage will be reduced from eight years to three years, he said.
Fain also said workers at GM’s Ultium EV battery operations will also be covered by the framework agreement. Some former GM workers at the company’s former assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, can also apply for jobs at Ultium at current salaries, and new employees will earn at least 75% of the maximum salary, he said.
In addition to the pay increases, the UAW said GM agreed to invest $4 billion at its Orion, Michigan, plant for future electric vehicles, and $2 billion at the Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant for two models of GM’s electric vehicles. and an associated future electric vehicle. . The union also said a future full-size electric SUV would be built at Factory Zero in Detroit.
Fain also called on workers across the United States to organize.
“Automotive sector workers in toyota (NYSE:), sling (NYSE:), Volkswagen (ETR:), Hyundai (OTC:) and Tesla (NASDAQ:), also deserve record contracts,” he said, referring to planned future organizing efforts.
