TOLEDO New Jeep pact includes building of new plant

Workers got a $3,000 signing bonus.
TOLEDO (AP) -- Jeep workers approved an eight-year contract in which DaimlerChrysler AG agrees to invest $2.1 billion to build a new supplier-operated factory that will make two vehicles besides the Liberty and Wrangler.
According to top officials of United Auto Workers Local 12, Jeep workers approved the contract 3,002-1,012 in voting Monday. More than 90 percent of eligible workers cast ballots.
"I'm excited. I knew that the membership would do the right thing," said Nick Vuich, Local 12 Jeep unit chairman.
The contract also provides each worker with a $3,000 signing bonus.
The supplier-run factory would be built next to Jeep's 3-year-old assembly plant, and union jobs would be transferred to the new plant that also would have vehicle body and paint shops, Vuich said.
The investments would be for a redesigned Jeep Wrangler and Liberty and two other vehicles not yet identified, along with some factory improvements, Vuich said.
No additional jobs are expected initially under the deal reached last week. With 4,700 workers, the plant is the Toledo area's largest industrial employer.
The agreement
Some workers said Monday they voted for the agreement because they thought it was a good one, even though it will mean suppliers will build painted bodies for the upcoming redesigned Jeep Wrangler starting in 2006.
Other segments of the redesigned Wrangler and another vehicle off its platform, including as much as a complete chassis, are to be built by suppliers as part of the agreement too.
Such supplier work on the site of a Big Three auto assembly complex is unheard of in the United States.
Vuich said that getting 800 of 4,700 members back to work was a primary focus of the negotiations. Under the pact, all members will be provided with buyouts or jobs, possibly with suppliers and in some cases for the same wages and benefits as at Toledo Jeep for the contracts life.