UPDATED 12:07 P.M.
(Reuters) -United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement with Stellantis on Saturday, a deal that is pending approval from the union’s top leaders and includes reopening the automaker’s Illinois plant, two people familiar with the matter said.
The proposed accord is likely to follow a template set just days ago by the UAW and Ford, including a 25% wage hike over the 4-1/2-year contract, starting with an initial increase of 11%.
No public deal announcement is expected until later Saturday afternoon or early evening, the sources said. Strikes have entered week seven.
Stellantis shuttered its assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, early this year, leaving 1,300 workers without jobs.
UAW President Shawn Fain vowed to reverse the decision, and the union criticized Stellantis management over the issue in a lengthy video. The Biden administration and the state of Illinois have offered subsidies that could help re-tool the factory. Illinois acquired 170 acres of land adjacent to the assembly plant.
UAW is expected to unveil details of the tentative deal later on Saturday, which will have provisions on the use of temporary workers, the sources said, adding Stellantis has agreed to significant product commitment and investment.
Fain and other senior union leaders are expected to have a video conference with local UAW officials who will explain the contract terms to workers, the sources said.
The deal to reopen the Belvidere plant is contingent on expected state and local tax incentives, they said.
The deal is expected to include investments in other U.S. plants, including the Trenton engine plant, sources said. The plant, south of Detroit, is a 71-year old facility that builds six cylinder engines.
Talks with General Motors were ongoing. Negotiators for company and the union were expected to re-convene around noon after working into the early hours of Saturday morning, the sources said.
Some 45,000 workers out of nearly 150,000 union members at the Detroit Three eventually joined the strike, which has cost billions of dollars to the industry.
Talks with GM and Stellantis have been protracted because of issues such as pension and how fast temporary workers would get permanent work, sources have said.
Fain repeatedly accused the Detroit Three automakers of enriching executives and investors, while neglecting workers and said the UAW’s success would help blue collar workers throughout the country.
The Detroit automakers argued that the UAW’s demands would significantly raise costs and put them at a disadvantage compared with EV leader Tesla and foreign brands such as Toyota Motor, which are nonunionized.
Ford expects the new contract will add $850 to $900 in labor cost per vehicle. Tesla already had a labor cost advantage of roughly $20 per hour before the UAW and the Detroit Three automakers began their bargaining, analysts have said.
The UAW has said the Ford deal would amount to total pay hikes of more than 33% when compounding and cost-of-living are factored in.
The strike which began at relatively unimportant plants spread to the biggest money-makers, producing pickup trucks and SUVs, ratcheting up the pain.
The UAW eventually struck against eight plants, most recently GM’s Arlington, Texas, assembly plant, which makes the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, Ford’s Kentucky Truck heavy-duty pickup factory and Stellantis’ Ram pickup plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
The UAW’s initial demands had included 40% pay increases, cost-of-living adjustments pegged to inflation, job or pay guarantees, an end to lower wages for lower seniority workers and defined benefit pensions.
(Editing by David Shepardson and Joseph White; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by David Gregorio)
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(Reuters) -Top United Auto Workers are close to a tentative agreement with Stellantis and will outline to local union officials on Saturday terms including reopening the automaker’s Illinois assembly plant, two people familiar with the matter said.
Stellantis shuttered its assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, early this year, leaving 1,300 workers without jobs.
UAW President Shawn Fain vowed to reverse the decision, and the union criticized Stellantis management over the issue in a lengthy video. The Biden administration and the state of Illinois have offered subsidies that could help re-tool the factory. Illinois acquired 170 acres of land adjacent to the assembly plant.
UAW is expected to unveil details of the tentative deal later on Saturday, which will have provisions on the use of temporary workers, the sources said, adding Stellantis has agreed to significant product commitment and investment.
Fain and other senior union leaders are expected to have a video conference with local UAW officials who will explain the contract terms to workers, the sources said.
The deal to reopen the Belvidere plant is contingent on expected state and local tax incentives, they said.
The deal is expected to include investments in other U.S. plants, including the Trenton engine plant, sources said. The plant, south of Detroit, is a 71-year old facility that builds six cylinder engines.
Talks with General Motors were ongoing. Negotiators for company and the union were expected to re-convene around noon after working into the early hours of Saturday morning, the sources said.
(Editing by David Shepardson and Joseph White; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by David Gregorio)
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(Reuters) -Chrysler parent Stellantis and the United Auto Workers were nearing a deal that could be finalized as soon a Saturday to end a six-week-old strike, sources told Reuters.
On Wednesday, Ford Motor was the first of Detroit’s Big Three car manufacturers to negotiate an agreement to settle strikes joined by 45,000 Detroit Three auto workers since mid-September. The deal will likely set a pattern for new UAW contracts with GM and Stellantis.
Talks between Stellantis and the UAW were set to reconvene at 10 a.m. Detroit after lengthy talks on Friday. The meeting Saturday could finalize a tentative agreement, the sources said. Talks between the UAW and General Motors were continuing past 9 p.m. Friday.
Both GM and Stellantis have agreed to match Ford on key economic terms including the 25% wage hike, but some final crucial issues including the use of temporary workers has been one of the final issues of discussion, the sources said.
Stellantis has offered to build a new vehicle at a shuttered Belivdere, Ilinois factory as well as a new battery plant, a person briefed on the matter said, confirming a Bloomberg News report.
GM shares closed down 4.6% at $27.22. Stellantis shares closed down 2.4% at $18.04 in New York.
The Ford agreement, which still must be ratified by union members, includes a 25% wage hike over the life of the 4-1/2-year contract, a boost in retirement contributions, and the elimination of lower-pay tiers for workers in certain parts operations at Ford.
It also reduces the time to get to top pay to three years from eight, and the UAW won the right to strike over plant closures.
The deal amounts to total pay hikes of more than 33% when compounding and cost-of-living mechanisms are factored in, the UAW said.
Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said on Thursday that the strike had cost the automaker $1.3 billion in earnings and 80,000 vehicles.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Joseph White in DetroitEditing by Chizu Nomiyama, Peter Henderson, Matthew Lewis and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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