Union members at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors have ratified a new 4½-year contract, locking in at 11% pay increases secured after a six-week strike in September and October.
The United Auto Workers said that roughly 67% of Ford employees represented by the UAW voted in favor of the contract, which will last through April 30, 2028.
Voting officially ends Friday, but with around 57,000 union employees at Ford, the contract appeared headed toward easy ratification.
The contracts were negotiated after members of the UAW went on strike from Sept. 15 until late October.
Union members will get a total pay increase of 25% over the course of the deal. The new contracts also reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, let workers reach top wages in three years instead of eight and protect their right to strike over plant closures.
Both the UAW and the carmakers described the deals as “record” contracts based on those pay increases. The union also said members were regaining some of the benefits they agreed to give up after the Great Recession to help keep the automakers alive.
Workers at GM approved the contract, but they did so by a much narrower margin than Ford’s employees did, with about 55% of workers voting yes.
While UAW President Shawn Fain has called the contacts a victory for workers, he has also said they are part of a larger plan to win back more benefits over the long haul.
According to the UAW’s ratification vote tracker, Stellantis employees were on pace to approve the deal at margins similar to Ford workers. With 17,391 votes tallied as of Thursday evening ET, about 66% of ballots had been cast in favor of accepting the contract.
While the general terms of the contracts are similar, workers at Detroit’s Big Three automakers are voting to accept or reject them independently.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
