UAW closing in on deals with both GM and Stellantis

The United Auto Workers union is getting close to tentative labor deals with both General Motors and Stellantis, according to three sources familiar with negotiations.

If deals with the two automakers are reached, it would be the beginning of the end of America’s longest auto strike in 25 years, one that has had as many as 45,000 union members on the picket lines. There are about 29,000 UAW members currently on strike at GM and Stellantis.

The union is not commenting on the state of talks and neither are the companies. But one source said GM and union negotiations went through the night until 5 am Friday and are due back at the table this afternoon. The other source said Stellantis and other union negotiators went through the night and into the early morning Friday.

The union has been on strike since September 15 against GM, Stellantis and Ford, the first time the union has ever struck all three companies at once. It announced a tentative agreement with Ford on Wednesday evening, however, after an all-night bargaining session with the company Tuesday night.

“There was definitely a lot of movement overnight” in talks with Stellantis, one of the sources said.

That deal still needs to be ratified by a vote of 57,000 UAW members at Ford before it will take effect. The ratification process at Ford is due to start Sunday with a meeting in Detroit of local union officials who represent Ford workers around the country. If deals are reached at GM and Stellantis by Friday, the union could begin the ratification process at all three at the same time.

Membership approval of any deals reached at GM and Stellantis would also be needed before they would take effect.

The deal at Ford would give members an immediate 11% raise upon ratification, and additional increases that will provide workers a total of 25 percentage points of pay hikes by the time the contract expires in early 2028. In addition, workers will have a return of cost-of-living adjustments made to their hourly pay rate to protect them against price increases.

When the COLA and guaranteed raises are combined, they are expected to raise wages 30%. There will be even bigger pay increases for workers now in a lower pay tier, for temporary workers and for starting pay.

The union has also won improved pension benefits for senior workers who have a traditional pension plan, and increased company contributions to 401(k) accounts of workers hired since 2007. But the union did not get its goal of a resumption of traditional pension plans for those post-2007 hires, or for a return of retiree health care coverage.

The union represents 145,000 workers between the three companies, but it did not have all of its members go on strike. Instead, it has been conducting targeted strikes at specific plants. It began with 12,700 members walking out at one assembly plant at each company, and it has expanded the scope of the strike five times since then. At the time the Ford deal was announced, there were 16,600 members on strike at Ford, 14,200 on strike at GM and 14,600 on strike at Stellantis.

Most recently it added the largest Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on Monday, and the largest GM plant in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday, shortly after GM reported stronger than expected quarterly earnings.

In its earnings report, GM reported that it lost $200 million over the first two weeks of the strike in late September, and it lost another $600 million in the first three weeks of October. But the closing of the Arlington plant alone is likely to cause losses of an additional $130 million a week, according to an estimate from Colin Langan, an auto analyst with Wells Fargo.

Stellantis has not given a loss estimate from the strike, but Langan estimates the Sterling Heights plant being on strike raises its weekly losses by $110 million a week to $200 million.

Generally a union will not have strikers return to work until a tentative labor agreement has been ratified. But the UAW said it was having workers return to work at Ford while the ratification vote is conducted as a way of stepping up pressure on GM and Stellantis to quickly reach their own deals with the union.

“The last thing they want is for Ford to get back to full capacity while they mess around and lag behind,” said UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, the union’s chief negotiator at Ford, in comments to members Wednesday night.

Some members have already returned to work at Ford as the company prepares to resume operations, said Todd Dunn, UAW Local 862 president, who represents workers at Kentucky Truck Plant, Ford’s largest factory. Others are due back on Saturday. The plan is that by Monday, the plant will be running at full capacity, he said.