First agreement in the car strike in the USA. The UAW union announced that its negotiators have agreed in principle on the collective bargaining agreement for the next four years, which will bring an end to a historic labor dispute. The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by workers, increases pressure on General Motors and Stellantis negotiators to also agree on new working conditions. The agreement is a triumph for union leader Shawn Fain, whose strategy has won large wage increases and other improvements in working conditions for workers.
Ford has about 57,000 workers affiliated with the UAW union. Only a small proportion of them joined the strike, given Fain’s progressive strategy, which only called for strikes in some factories and reserved the possibility of increasing the pressure with new factories. The union’s traditional strategy was to select one company as a strike target and, when an agreement was reached, to demand that the remaining companies fulfill its conditions. Fain has preferred to hit all three with a carrot-and-stick strategy to move negotiations forward. In addition, she managed to rally public opinion to the slander, and even the President of the United States, Joe Biden, took part in a strike demonstration for a few minutes.
Faced with the pressure of closing three factories, Ford has increased its offer to workers. According to the union, the agreement provides higher wage increases over the next four years than Ford workers have received in the last 22 years. By April 2028, the hourly pay increase will be 25%, and with some cost of living adjustments it will be more than 30%, up to more than $40 per hour. Starting pay increases 68% to over $28 per hour. The lowest-paid Ford workers will get a raise of more than 150% over the life of the deal, and some will get an 85% raise immediately after ratification, the UAW said.
The agreement also contains time limits, shortens the duration of the double pay scale (the promotion of new workers to the general pay scale is extended from eight to just three years) and recognizes the right of workers to strike in protest against factory closures. Additional vacation and two weeks of parental leave are also included.
“We have been saying for months that record profits mean record contracts. And the UAW family and our stand-up strike have brought success. “What started at midnight on September 15th in three factories has grown into a national movement,” Fain said in a video posted on social media. “We have achieved things that no one would have thought possible. Since the strike began, Ford has put 50% more on the table than when we left. This agreement puts us on a new path to doing things right at Ford, the Big Three and the entire automotive industry. Together we are turning the tables on the working class of this country,” he added.
General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV are scheduled to meet with the UAW on Thursday and the union hopes they will agree to the same terms, sources familiar with the negotiations reported to Bloomberg.
Bill Ford, president of Ford and a member of the fifth generation to lead the company, called early last week to end the strike against the Big Three of the Detroit auto industry (General Motors, Ford and Stellantis), which he said benefited from Tesla , Toyota, Honda and Chinese manufacturers. The manager warned that the future of the sector and communities in the areas where the factories are located were at risk. It was not this call, but the progress at the negotiating table that enabled us to reach an agreement in principle.
The strike began Sept. 15 with the closure of one plant in each of Detroit’s Big Three, which employs 14,000 union workers. Among them was Ford in Wayne, Michigan, which assembled the Bronco model and the Ranger truck. On Friday, September 29, the union leader called on 7,000 more UAW workers to strike at a General Motors plant and another Ford plant in Chicago, Illinois, where the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator models are manufactured.
On October 6, Fain announced important progress in the negotiations and decided not to extend the strike. But a few days later he surprised everyone with a strike at Ford’s most profitable plant, a truck and high-end automobile factory in Kentucky that employs about 8,700 workers and generates about $25,000 million annually. Workers will continue to strike until the agreement is ratified.
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