To hear the United Auto Workers’ fiery new president, Shawn Fain, tell it, Detroit’s largest automakers enjoyed years of lavish profits thanks to concessions made by its workers through the lean years before and after the 2009 recession. So as the UAW’s contract with the Big Three automakers expired in mid-September, the UAW authorized strikes against all three manufacturers — a historical first. Workers demanded pay raises, the return of lost benefits, better job security and the inclusion of electric-vehicle workers under the union’s master agreement. By the end of October, the union had tentative agreements with all three automakers that reversed more than a decade of concessions from organized labor. The deals included record pay increases, an aggressive cap on the use of lower-paid temp workers, and the right to strike over plant closures. It’ll be up to the UAW’s rank and file to ratify the deals with their votes.
The union’s first tentative contract agreement, reached with Ford on Oct. 25, includes record pay increases of more than 30%, with additional cost-of-living increases by the contract’s end on April 30, 2028. Ford’s lowest-paid workers will get an immediate raise of 88%. Top pay will go to $42.60 an hour, and there’s a $5,000 ratification bonus and a $1,500 voucher toward a new vehicle purchase. The deal also includes job security agreements, full-time jobs for temporary workers and a “pathway” for future EV workers to be covered by the union. Complete details of the Oct. 28 tentative agreement with Stellantis, maker of the Jeep and Chrysler brands, were not yet publicly known, although the automaker did match Ford’s pay hikes and agree to reopen an idled assembly plant, a coup for the union.
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