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The United Auto Workers and Ford reached a tentative deal on Wednesday night that would raise union members’ wages 25 per cent over the four-year agreement, following a sweeping 40-day strike against the traditional Big Three carmakers.
“For months, we’ve been saying record profits mean record contracts,” said UAW president Shawn Fain. “And UAW family, our Stand-Up strike has delivered.”
Ford said it was “pleased” to have reached the deal and was focused on restarting its plants in Kentucky, Michigan and Illinois that were shut down after workers walked off the job. The union called for Ford’s 16,600 workers on strike to return to work in advance of the vote by membership. About 29,000 workers at Stellantis and General Motors will remain on strike.
“We’re going back to work at Ford to keep the pressure on Stellantis and GM,” Fain said. “The last thing they want is for Ford to get back to full capacity while they lag and mess around.”
The agreement, which will not take effect unless members vote to ratify it, would raise the top pay rate above $40 per hour, which at 40 hours a week totals more than $83,000 annually.
The UAW started bargaining with Ford, GM and Stellantis in July. The negotiation was more tense than in previous bargaining cycles, affected by the technological change of electric vehicles, the US Midwest’s role in presidential politics, and Fain himself, a newly elected firebrand. He skipped a traditional handshake ceremony with executives at the car companies, choosing instead to shake hands with members at several auto plants.
In September, the UAW went on strike against all three Detroit carmakers at once, for the first time in its 88-year history. Instead of walking out en masse, the union selected specific targets to ratchet up pressure on the carmakers and preserve its strike fund.
Last month Joe Biden became the first US president in history to walk a picket line. On Wednesday, he congratulated Ford and the UAW for reaching the “historic” agreement.
“I’ve always believed the middle class built America and unions built the middle class,” he said. “That is especially the case for UAW workers who built an iconic American industry. And critical to building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, instead of from the top down, is worker power.”
Workers demonstrated their power by shutting down Ford’s most profitable plant, Kentucky Truck, followed this week by factories at Stellantis and GM that produce significant moneymakers for those companies.
The tentative deal reached with Ford is “the most lucrative agreement per member since Walter Reuther”, said UAW vice-president Chuck Browning, citing the labour leader who headed the union until his death in 1970.
The agreement raises starting wages by 68 per cent, Browning said. It also restores cost of living adjustments, shortens the length of time it takes for new employees to reach the top pay rate to three years, and gives workers the right to strike over plant closures.
“We told Ford to pony up, and they did,” Fain said. “We won things nobody thought was possible.”
Later on social media, he added: “The working class is going on offense, and winning. GM and Stellantis up next.”
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