UAW-affiliated Ford workers will vote by week’s end to ratify their union’s tentative four-year agreement with Ford Motor Company, or choose to kick it back in their faces and ask for something better. The General Motors contract, recently ratified, was a fairly close thing.

While bonuses, pay, and healthcare costs might be top of mind for most Ford employees, product is what concerns us here. Thankfully, leaked copies of the tentative agreement have emerged, providing a look at what vehicles we can expect Ford to build, and where.

For Michigan’s Flat Rock Assembly, it seems the near future won’t be as exciting as initially thought. (Read More…)

Today is the last day of voting for UAW members employed at General Motors plants. By day’s end, we’ll know whether the rank and file saw fit to ratify the tentative agreement signed last week, thus ending the now 40-day-long strike, or send their bargaining team back to the table in search of a better deal.

So far, the membership hasn’t proven particularly enthusiastic, especially those employed at GMCH parts plants. (Read More…)

The United Automobile Workers are tallying strike votes as union leadership decides which contract terms are worth fighting over. While this is par for the course in any contract negotiation with General Motors, Ford, or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, this year’s talks have been mired in scandal and economic uncertainty.

Despite the continued strength of the U.S. economy, the automotive industry has been busily preparing itself for a global recession — encouraging quite a bit of restructuring over the past year. Meanwhile, the UAW finds itself the subject of a federal corruption probe that has severely undermined its credibility. We know that at least one automaker, Fiat Chrysler, was actively bribing union officials. Following the recent conviction of the former head of the union’s FCA Department, Norwood Jewell, General Motors has also been implicated.  (Read More…)

A weekend meeting with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne led to a final-hour tentative agreement between the automaker and the union representing Detroit Three autoworkers in Canada, Unifor president Jerry Dias claims.

The deal, announced five minutes before Monday’s 11:59 p.m. strike deadline, means 3,500 Brampton assembly plant workers face a less uncertain future than before. (Read More…)

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles must make some pricey commitments to head off a midnight strike by its Canadian autoworkers.

Bargaining teams from FCA and Unifor, which represents Detroit Three autoworkers in Canada, worked throughout the weekend to nail down a contract deal patterned on the recent General Motors agreement.

Without product commitment for its Brampton assembly plant and Etobicoke casting plant, among other sticking points, workers could walk off the job tonight. (Read More…)

Canada, as the New York Times helpfully points out, actually celebrates Thanksgiving (!), but bargaining teams from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and autoworkers union Unifor won’t get to enjoy it.

The two groups are expected to bargain down to the last minute as contract talks approach Monday night’s strike deadline, the Windsor Star reports. Unlike recent bargaining between Unifor and General Motors, the FCA negotiations have been whisper quiet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t action happening behind the scenes. (Read More…)

GM Canada autoworkers seemed pretty pleased with the contract deal their union reached with the company, but Ford needs to put something different on the table to satisfy its employees.

The president of a Unifor local representing Canadian Ford workers said his members would have voted down the GM deal, Reuters reports. (Read More…)

GM Canada and the union representing Detroit Three autoworkers north of the border have entered their final day of contract talks ahead of a midnight strike deadline.

Unless both sides achieve a breakthrough today, there’s little reason to believe a walkout at the company’s Oshawa, Woodstock and St. Catharines, Ontario facilities won’t occur as the clock strikes twelve.  (Read More…)

President for the union representing Detroit Three autoworkers north of the border says he has learned from past contract battles, and won’t make the same mistake this time.

Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, promises that no contract deal will be ratified without firm product commitments, including at General Motors’ endangered Oshawa assembly plant. If GM intends to shut that operation down, a Canada-wide strike is virtually guaranteed. (Read More…)

With hours remaining until voting ends on the tentative contract between General Motors and the UAW, support for the contract continues to grow.

According to The Detroit News, over 80 percent of GM’s 52,600 hourly employees have had a chance to look over and vote upon the agreement, including those in Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan.

Among Lansing’s over 3,000 employees, 54 percent of production and 43 percent of skilled trades workers voted in favor, per UAW Local 602. Over in Lordstown, Local 1714 (Stamping, Complex West) found healthy majorities in favor of the contract — 67.9 percent production, 57.4 percent skilled trades — while Local 1112 saw 72 percent of production and 29 percent of skilled trades workers voting the same. Both unions represent over 4,100 Lordstown employees.

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Two more local unions rejected the proposed four-year contract deal between FCA US and the UAW Friday, adding to the growing opposition as voting continues.

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The tentative pact between the United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles reached Tuesday evening may eventually end the two-tiered pay system for thousands of workers at the automaker, Reuters reported.

FCA chief executive Sergio Marchionne said the agreement would do away with the separate system “over time.” Roughly 45 percent of FCA’s workforce was hired at the lower, Tier 2 pay, which is roughly $9 less per hour than older, Tier 1 workers.

According to the report, raises for both classifications of workers would be likely, although details weren’t discussed.

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Representatives from the United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles agreed Tuesday to extend their contract on an “hour-by-hour” basis, Reuters reported. Workers reported Tuesday for their morning shifts, but those workers could walk out at any time if talks stall.

On Monday, it became clear that the UAW would set its sights on FCA and their larger share of Tier 2 workers — workers hired after the recession at a lower hourly wage — as the union aims to “bridge the gap” between the two tiers.

According to the report, the union may opt to strike, stage a limited walkout or continue negotiations if talks reach an impasse.

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As national contract talks begin between the UAW and FCA US, the union’s lead negotiator for FCA says most of the locals have tentative agreements ready.

United Auto Workers Chrysler Department head of labor negotiations Norwood Jewell said in a letter to the union’s members Monday a few of the remaining locals were “having challenges reaching an agreement,” The Detroit News reports. The locals negotiate their own contracts — covering individual plant rules and issues — at the same time the union as a whole hammers out a national contract with the automakers.

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The UAW has chosen FCA US to bat leadoff in the union’s contract talks with the Detroit Three, prompting CEO Sergio Marchionne to forgo Frankfurt.

The move by the union to go after the weakest of the Detroit Three is meant to establish how all of the contract talks this month will proceed, Automotive News writes, with the possibility of striking out should the union not receive what they seek; the last UAW strike occurred with General Motors in 2007.

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