UAW ratifies deal with GM after late voting support

Hourly workers at General Motors component plants, parts distribution centers and battery plants canceled out opposition from higher-paid assembly plant employees to ratify a labor agreement that puts nearly everyone on the same wage scale.

The agreement passed by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent, winning by nearly 3,300 votes out of more than 35,000 cast.

The deal received support from about 81 percent of workers at GM Components Holding plants and parts distribution centers, as well as 96 percent of those at two electric vehicle battery plants. Many will receive immediate raises of up to 89 percent.

Meanwhile, 53 percent of workers at GM’s assembly, metal and propulsion plants voted no.

Workers who already were on GM’s top wage scale will get immediate 11 percent raises upon ratification. All workers also get a $5,000 ratification bonus.

The UAW and GM declined to immediately comment Thursday.

The agreement was in doubt earlier in the week after workers at seven of the company's 11 U.S. assembly plants rejected it. But support from 61 percent of workers at Arlington Assembly in Texas helped to prevent the deal's failure.

In contrast to the close voting at GM, the UAW's deals with Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis are easily headed toward ratification. Both were passing by roughly 2-to-1 margins as of Thursday afternoon.

Highlights of the terms

The GM agreement, which runs through April 2028, includes roughly $2 billion in new investment for future electric vehicle and parts production at three plants, brings employees at GM's joint-venture battery plants under the national UAW agreement and bumps wages and retirement contributions for its U.S. hourly work force. With the restoration of a cost-of-living adjustment, top wages would rise from about $32 per hour today to more than $42 by the end of the deal, and new hires would get to that level in three years instead of eight.

Temporary workers with at least 90 days on the job will see their wages rise between 51 and 115 percent at ratification as they are converted to full-time employees with seniority, the union has said.

Workers at GM’s parts distribution centers and components plants will move to the main production rate under the new agreement. Their wages currently start around $16 or $17 per hour, with top wages maxing out at less than $32 per hour for manufacturing workers.

The wage gains in this contract for newer employees at a GM parts distribution center in Hudson, Wis., will be “life-changing,” said Steve Frisque, president of UAW Local 722, where 93 percent of workers voted to ratify the deal.

“We feel they’re working right alongside us and should be making the same wage,” Frisque said.
 
He said he understands the desire among workers with more seniority to push for greater gains, including retirement benefits, but he believes the union was able to achieve everything it could in this round of talks.
 
“There’s only so much you’re going to get in negotiations,” he said. “Four years from now, we’ll go for the rest.”
 
Yet it’s not certain whether the economy will be as strong when the next round of bargaining begins in 2028, said Tony Totty, president of UAW Local 14, which represents hourly workers at the Toledo Propulsion Systems plant in Ohio.

Most Toledo workers opposed the deal, according to the union’s vote count. Totty said the plant has many employees who are nearing retirement in the upcoming contract cycle, and many employees are concerned retirement benefits in the agreement don’t go far enough.

GM agreed to increase its contribution into employees' 401(k) retirement accounts to 10 percent from 6.4 percent and provide a $5 increase to the basic monthly benefit for traditional pension holders, which would equate to an increase of $1,800 annually for future pensioners, the union said in a document highlighting the key contract changes.

The contract provides gains that workers are pleased with, but “there’s still a glaring hole in it, and that’s for the pension,” Totty told Automotive News.

“This is a better deal for somebody who doesn’t even work for our company yet than for somebody who just put in 30 years,” he said. “Now’s the time to fix it.”

Art Wheaton, a labor relations expert at Cornell University, said the close vote wasn’t a bad thing.

“It’s the sign of a good negotiations,” Wheaton said. “If they got a 99 percent vote, that means GM overspent. If they got 49 percent, that means GM was too cheap. If you’re at more than 50 percent, it means you threaded the needle.”

He said the vote revealed lingering differences among the various subsets of workers.

“Those with a higher seniority did not get as much of an increase because the union’s lifting up the lower-paid workers,” he said. “Those that were used to getting paid more than the others aren’t as happy.”

Michael Martinez contributed to this report.