The United Auto Workers and Chrysler LLC got a big boost from some Detroit-area plants that voted in favor of a new labor contract, but the road to ratification is still a bumpy one with thousands more workers scheduled to cast ballots in the next few days.
Much is now riding on votes set for Friday and Saturday in Belvidere, Ill., where 3,815 Chrysler hourly workers are employed at an assembly plant and a metal stamping plant. Belvidere is the last major complex where workers will be voting.
Chrysler and the UAW head to Belvidere with some key victories in their pocket after a string of earlier losses. On Wednesday, workers at four key Detroit-area UAW locals voted in favor of the tentative contract, including one local whose president had been an outspoken critic of the agreement. Those locals represented more than 8,600 workers, or roughly one out of every five who would be covered by the historic four-year pact.
Workers at Local 1700 approved the contract by just over 65 percent, President Bill Parker said, despite Parker's vocal opposition. Parker didn't say how many workers had voted. Local 1700 represents 2,500 workers who make the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger midsize cars at the Sterling Heights assembly plant.
Margins of victory were higher at the other three Detroit-area locals. Workers at Local 869, which represents just under 1,500 employees at the Warren stamping plant, voted 75 percent in favor, said Da Juan Tolbert, the local's recording secretary. Seventy-eight percent approved the tentative agreement at Local 140, which represents 2,600 workers at the Warren Truck Assembly plant, President Melvin Thompson said. And 82 percent of production workers at Local 1264 approved the agreement, President Bob Struglin said. Local 1264 represents 2,000 workers at a Sterling Heights metal stamping plant.
The votes were good news for UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who has faced challenges from some members opposed to the deal. The tentative agreement must be ratified by a majority of members to go into effect.
Chief among those challengers was Parker, a local president who also served as chairman of the union's national negotiating committee in the Chrysler talks.
Parker opposed the contract because it lowers wages for many new hires to around $14 per hour. Chrysler assembly workers now make about $28.75 per hour, according to the company. Parker also said the contract makes fewer guarantees for new products than General Motors Corp. promised workers in its contract.
“Two tiers of workers create divisions within the union, pressure to reduce the top tier in the direction of the second tier, and efforts to drive the second tier even lower,” Parker wrote in a minority report on the agreement.
Parker said he had no comment on the vote at his local Wednesday night.
A few miles south of Parker's plant, Thompson, the head of Local 140, said the contract is a creative one that helps retirees by establishing a health care trust fund and protects current workers' wages. He disagreed with Parker's criticism of the two-tier wage scale.
“The two-tier is what creates opportunity for Chrysler and new hires,” Thompson said. “Chrysler gets to reduce costs and be more competitive, which we have to do.”
The UAW's efforts to sell the deal to skeptical members appeared to be paying off.
Autoworker Angela Parker said she was persuaded to vote for the deal after the UAW's chief Chrysler negotiator, General Holiefield, visited Local 140. Parker, 40, who has worked at Chrysler for 14 years, said she was planning to vote against the contract but decided to vote in favor after learning that workers hired at the lower wage would have the opportunity to move into higher-paying jobs.
Other workers said they felt the contract was the best they could get in this economic climate.
“Cars aren't selling,” said Melro Brooks, 58, a 34-year veteran of Chrysler. “Right now is a bad time to strike. Twenty-two years ago, sure. We were the Big Three. We're no longer the Big Three.”
The Detroit-area locals were voting a day after two locals in Kokomo, Ind., overwhelmingly rejected the deal, which was reached Oct. 10 after a six-hour strike.
Eight local unions representing more than 16,000 workers have now turned down the landmark pact, while 10 others representing about 17,700 workers have approved it. It's nearly impossible to keep a running total because most local union officials give out only percentages and not the number of people who voted. Also, officials of some smaller locals could not be reached or would not give out results.
UAW workers haven't rejected a national contract since Chrysler employees did in 1982.
While the UAW concentrates on Chrysler, talks have been proceeding slowly at Ford Motor Co., the last automaker to negotiate with the UAW in this year's round of contract negotiations. GM workers already have ratified their contract.
