BackUAW Workers at GM’s Largest Plant Back Labor Pact, Boosting Deal’s Chances
Majorities at several GM factories shot down the pact, creating a tighter vote than many expected.
PremiumA majority of workers at General Motors’ largest U.S. factory voted in favor of a tentative contract with the United Auto Workers, bolstering the deal’s chances for approval as a tight vote enters its final hours.
Workers at GM’s factory in Arlington, Texas, which makes large SUVs including the Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe, voted yes by more than 60%, according to Wednesday results from the local union chapter.
That victory broke through a round of rejections over recent days at major GM factories, including a 68% no vote at a Tennessee plant and other defeats in Missouri and Michigan.
As of Wednesday afternoon, around 54% of members had supported the deal, with most facilities having reported their final results, according to the UAW tally.
The union needs a majority of workers to vote yes for the contract to be ratified. A final result is expected this week.
The UAW reached tentative deals with Ford Motor, GM and Chrysler-parent Stellantis last month to cover around 146,000 workers at the Detroit companies. The resolutions came after a six-week strike that sent more than 45,000 workers off the job.
Voting is still under way at Ford and Stellantis. Workers at those two companies are supporting the agreements by wider margins than at GM, based on the UAW data.
The terms of each proposed contract roughly mirror one another, and include a 25% wage increase, including an 11% bump in the first year. Each also includes annual cost-of-living adjustments that would get added to the base wage as an inflation protection, and company contributions to retirement plans of as much as 10%.
UAW President Shawn Fain has called the tentative agreements record contracts, and told union members during a livestream last week that the union leaders “squeezed every penny" out of the companies. It would be difficult for Fain’s team to demand further concessions, analysts say.
Some workers felt there were more gains to be had, which led to more of a nail-biter than many industry observers expected.
Wendell Hicks III, an assembly worker at a GM truck plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., said he needed to see more from the company to compensate for the sacrifices workers made after the 2009 bankruptcy. The return of defined benefit pensions for all workers would help change his no vote to a yes, he said.
“The promises that were supposed to be made when the UAW helped bail GM out," he said, “those promises have not yet been fulfilled."
Shares of GM slipped 6 cents to $28.14 in trading Wednesday.
Ratification of the labor agreement would lock in higher labor costs for the Detroit companies, whose executives have warned that the contracts would put them at a disadvantage to competitors with nonunionized U.S. workforces, such as Toyota Motor and Tesla.
All-in labor costs for the Detroit companies would rise to mid-$80s-to-$90 per hour by the end of the contracts in about four years, according to an estimate from Wells Fargo, up from the mid-$60s today. In comparison, foreign automakers and Tesla had labor costs of around $45 to $55 in recent years.
Already, Toyota, Honda Motor and other foreign automakers have raised wages for their nonunionized workers in an effort to stay competitive with pay in the broader industry.
The UAW’s next challenge will be expanding upon its wins in Detroit and wooing nonrepresented workers at the factories owned by foreign automakers and electric vehicle manufacturers.
Union organizers have been putting out feelers at facilities across the U.S., and last week the UAW formally urged workers at Honda and Subaru to sign authorization cards indicating they would like to be represented.
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