UAW Members Ratify GM Contract To End Longest Strike In 50 Years

UAW General Motors members ratified a four-year contract with GM, ending a six-week strike, the longest national auto industry strike in a half century, the UAW announced Friday.

“General Motors members have spoken,” said Terry Dittes, UAW vice president and director of the UAW-GM Department. “We are all so incredibly proud of UAW-GM members who captured the hearts and minds of a nation. Their sacrifice and courageous stand addressed the two-tier wages structure and permanent temporary worker classification that has plagued working-class Americans.”

UAW members voted 23,389 to 17,501 to accept the contract. The ratification means workers will begin returning to their jobs Saturday.

The idle Lordstown (Ohio) Assembly plant will be shuttered as will a parts distribution center in Fontana, California; Baltimore Operations in Maryland, and Warren Transmission in southeast Michigan.

“Obviously we’re all disappointed and angry over what happened,” Tim O’Hara, president of Lordstown Local 1112, told the Detroit Free Press. “For our members, they have to make some decisions now that they hoped they didn’t have to make. Many of them transferred to other plants and left their families behind hoping they’d return to Lordstown one day.”

Negotiations move next to Ford, using the GM contract as a template. After that, they move to Fiat Chrysler.

The contract provides nearly 46,000 regular employees an $11,000 signing bonus and temporary employees $4,500, performance bonuses, 3% annual raises or 4% lump sum payments, and lifts the cap on profit-sharing. It also holds the line on healthcare costs at 3% employee contributions. The contract provides a path for temporary employees to transition to permanent status after three years beginning in January 2020 when 900 workers become eligible and shortens the period for new hires to reach the top pay grade.

“We delivered a contract that recognizes our employees for the important contributions they make to the overall success of the company, with a strong wage and benefit package and additional investment and job growth in our U.S. operations,” said Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO.

GM agreed to invest $7.7 billion in various plants, including assigning an all-electric pickup to its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant.

The strike cost GM nearly $2 billion in lost production and 5% of its share value. Losses to suppliers were in the hundreds of millions with Lear Corp. Friday reporting $525 million in lost revenue.