Stellantis will match pay hike included in UAW-Ford deal
FILE - United Auto Workers signs for a strike are shown at the Stellantis Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, in Sterling Heights, Mich., Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Jeep maker Stellantis has reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union that follows a template set earlier this week by Ford, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
Jeep maker Stellantis and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union reached a tentative deal on Saturday.
“Today, we reached a tentative agreement with Stellantis,” UAW president Shawn Fain said in a video posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“At Stellantis, we not only secured a record contract, we have begun to turn the tide on the war on the American working class,” Fain later said in the video. “And we truly are saving the American dream.”
Sources previously confirmed the Stellantis deal to the Associated Press, adding that most of the main points of the Ford deal will carry over into their agreement.
UAW members and Ford reached a tentative labor agreement Wednesday, the union announced, ending weeks of strikes at the company. The deal includes a 25 percent wage increase over the course of four years, with 11 percent coming in the first year. Cost of living increases could lift the pay to 33 percent, UAW said.
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Now, all eyes are on GM.
More strikes could hurt the companies, particularly the profitable truck plants GM has. GM said Tuesday that it’s losing about $200 million per week due to the strike, the AP reported.
UAW Ford employees will go back to work pending the tentative deal, but 57,000 members must approve the agreement with a majority vote for it to go into place.
Stellantis’s tentative deal would also need to be ratified by members — but strikers are expected to take down their picket lines and return to work in the coming days.
Both the Ford and Stellantis deals would run through April 30, 2028.
GM and Stellantis likely felt pressure after President Biden applauded the Ford deal in a public statement.
According to the AP, GM has agreed to pull its new electric vehicle battery factories into the UAW’s national contract, which unionized them. Electric vehicle production is one of the key points for the striking workers, as the industry prepares to ramp up production in the coming years.
Updated Saturday Oct. 28 at 9:06 p.m.