ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Skip to main content

UAW members at the first Ford plant to go on strike overwhelmingly approve the new contract

United Auto Workers members walk the picket line at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., Sept. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file) United Auto Workers members walk the picket line at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., Sept. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file)
Share
DETROIT -

Autoworkers at the first Ford factory to go on strike have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a tentative contract agreement reached with the company.

Members of Local 900 at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., west of Detroit voted 82 per cent in favour of the four year-and-eight month deal, the United Auto Workers union said in a statement Thursday. The union said 3,097 workers voted in favour and 683 were against the contract.

Production workers voted 81 per cent to ratify the deal, while skilled trades workers voted 90 per cent in favour. Voting by Ford's 57,000 union members will continue through Nov. 17.

Workers went on strike at the assembly plant Sept. 15 after the union's contract with Ford expired. They remained on the picket lines until Oct. 25, when the union announced the tentative deal with Ford.

Local union leaders from across the country at Jeep maker Stellantis voted unanimously on Thursday to send the contract to members for a vote. General Motors local leaders will meet on Friday. Dates for member voting at GM or Stellantis were not yet clear.

Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who follows labour issues, said the vote at the Ford factory is a positive sign for the union.

"These workers are deeply in the know about the overall situation," he said. "I think that they responded to it with such high levels of approval it is perhaps reflective of how the broader workforce represented by the UAW feels about this contract."

Masters says union officials still have to make their cases to the membership, but "certainly this would appear to be a harbinger of good news."

The deals with all three companies are generally the same, although there are some differences. All give workers 25 per cent general pay raises with 11 per cent upon ratification. With cost of living pay, the raises will exceed 30 per cent by the time the contracts end on April 30, 2028. Workers hired after 2009 without defined benefit pensions will get 10 per cent annual company contributions to 401(k) plans, and they'll get US$5,000 ratification bonuses.

On Thursday night, Fain and vice-president Rich Boyer told workers in an online presentation that the union's strikes got every last dime possible out of Stellantis.

The top assembly plant wage at the company will go from US$31.77 per hour to US$42.24 by the end of the contract, Boyer said.

The union said it saved jobs at a plant in Belvidere, Ill., that Stellantis wanted to close. Plus, workers at a new joint-venture electric vehicle battery factory planned for Belvidere will be Stellantis employees and leased to the joint venture, Fain said.

Workers at the plant will be under the UAW national contract and will make over US$30 per hour by the end of the contract, with the chance to bargain for more later, Fain said.

Fain said terrified auto executives at non-union plants are raising wages, citing an increase this week at Toyota factories in an effort to keep the UAW from organizing their plants.

"Even though you're not yet members of our union," Fain said to Toyota workers, "that pay raise Toyota is giving you is the UAW bump. UAW, that stands for 'You Are Welcome."'

UAW workers began their strikes with targeted walkouts at all three automakers that escalated during a six-week period in an effort to pressure the companies into a deal. GM was the last company to settle early Sunday morning.

At its peak 46,000 union members had gone on strike at eight assembly plants and 38 parts warehouses across the nation. The union has about 146,000 members at all three of the Detroit auto companies.

Correction

This story has been corrected to show that 82 per cent of workers at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant voted in favour of the tentative contract agreement, not 81 per cent.

CTVNews.ca ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.

The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.

An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.

Emergency crews in northern Ontario found the bodies of four people inside a home where a fire broke out Thursday night.

The Montreal couple from Mexico and their three children facing deportation have received a temporary residence permit.

Local Spotlight

They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.

A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.

Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.

The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.

It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.

A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.

David Krumholtz, known for roles like Bernard the Elf in The Santa Clause and physicist Isidor Rabi in Oppenheimer, has spent the latter part of his summer filming horror flick Altar in Winnipeg. He says Winnipeg is the most movie-savvy town he's ever been in.

Edmontonians can count themselves lucky to ever see one tiger salamander, let alone the thousands one local woman says recently descended on her childhood home.

Stay Connected