United Auto Staff President Shawn Fain (right) and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock (left) lead a march outside Stellantis’ Ram 1500 plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan after the union called a strike on the plant on Oct. 23, 2023.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
DETROIT – The United Auto Staff union and Ford Motor have reached a tentative agreement that may end a virtually six-week strike on the automaker, the union announced Wednesday night.
The tentative agreement, which was first reported earlier by CNBC, includes 25% pay increases over the terms of the agreement and can cumulatively raise the highest wage to greater than $40 an hour, including a rise of 68% for starting wages to over $28 an hour.
It also includes reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments, a three-year path to top wages and right to strike over plant closures. amongst other significantly enhanced advantages.
“We told Ford to pony up and so they did. We won things no one thought was possible,” UAW President Shawn Fain said during a video posted online Wednesday night. He said the worth of Ford’s offer increased by 50% compared to when the targeted, or “stand-up,” strikes began Sept. 15.
The tentative deal still should be approved by local UAW leaders after which ratified by an easy majority of Ford’s 57,000 union-represented employees. The union will hold informational meetings in addition to a web based briefing to discuss specifics of the agreement, which is able to posted online with summaries.
Autoworkers who’re currently on strike with Ford will return to work while the union’s approval and voting process occurs, UAW Vice President Chuck Browning said in the course of the video with Fain.
“Like all the things we have done during this ‘stand-up’ strike, it is a strategic move to get the perfect deal possible,” Browning, who led Ford negotiations, said. “We’re going back to work at Ford to keep the pressure on Stellantis and GM. The last item they need is for Ford to get back to full capability while they fiddle and lag behind.”
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Ford, in a press release, said it was “pleased to have reached a tentative agreement.” The corporate is now focused on restarting production on the Kentucky Truck Plant, the Michigan Assembly Plant and the Chicago Assembly Plant, where the union initiated walkouts of roughly 16,600 employees.
Shares of Ford were up roughly 2% during afterhours trading. The stock closed Wednesday at $11.54 per share, up 1.3%. Shares are down lower than 1% this 12 months.
The union said gains within the deal are valued at greater than 4 times the gains from the 2019 contract and supply more in base wage increases than Ford employees have received prior to now 22 years.
Ford, which reports its third-quarter results after the markets close Thursday, and the union participated in intense bargaining Tuesday and Wednesday to finalize the record deal, sources told CNBC.
The UAW and Ford in addition to its crosstown rivals General Motors and Stellantis have been locked in negotiations largely across the economics of the deals because the sides failed to reach recent contracts covering 146,000 autoworkers by a Sept 14 deadline.
The union initiated negotiations with all three automakers directly, breaking from recent history when UAW leaders would bargain with each automaker individually, select a lead company to focus efforts on after which pattern the remaining deals off a number one tentative agreement.
Each GM and Stellantis released statements Wednesday night about continuing to work with the UAW union to reach tentative agreements “as soon as possible.”