UAW reaches contract agreement with Ford, GM workers not decided

The United Auto Workers union reached a tentative contract agreement with Ford yesterday, which coincided with General Motors workers voting in favour of a similar four-year deal.

However, the GM pact could not be officially ratified due to a section of workers including electricians and pipe fitters rejecting the deal.

According to the UAW, it reached an agreement with Ford on Friday, with the contract covering 53,000 workers at 22 US plants.

Though no details were released, Ford's agreement was expected to be similar to the contract with GM.

According to the union, though 55.4 per cent of GM workers overall voted in favour of the deal, including 58 per cent of production workers, almost 60 per cent of skilled trades workers rejected the deal.
 
Union leaders will now need to hold meetings with trades workers over the next several days to find out the reasons for the deal's rejection.

In a statement the UAW said, the union executive board will meet to determine the next step.

In view of the rejection by skilled trades workers, provisions specifically aimed at those workers could change, but it cannot change parts of the agreement that are "common to all members," the union statement said.
 
The skilled trades workers have issues with the provisions that allow GM to continue reducing the number of their classifications and ask them to do jobs beyond their trained specialty.

They were also not eligible to $60,000 retirement incentive that up to 4,000 production workers could take, on the basis of seniority and age.

As per UAW byelaws, union leaders are obligated to hear the skilled trades' complaints in view of the overwhelming rejection. A series of meetings would be held, to thrash out the issues, but until then, UAW president Dennis Williams cannot give GM formal notice that the contract is ratified.

"The UAW will hold meetings with its skilled trades membership at each GM worksite over the next several days in order to determine what reason(s) they had for rejection of the tentative agreement," the union said in a statement Friday night. 

"Once that inquiry has concluded, the UAW's International Executive Board shall meet to determine what appropriate steps shall be taken. The results of this process cannot change aspects of the agreement which are common to all members."