GM pact ratified; Chrysler strike settled

GM’s Lordstown complex is getting new products for 2009 and 2010.

STAFF/WIRE REPORTS

DETROIT — The United Auto Workers union ratified its landmark contract with General Motors Corp. on Wednesday, marking a radical departure in labor relations and providing GM with much of the competitive edge it says it needs to be profitable in its home market.

Union assembly workers approved the deal at a rate of 66 percent, and 66 percent of skilled trades workers approved it, the UAW reported in a statement.

Though that’s dramatically lower than historic UAW ratification rates, experts and union officials said they were impressed.

In a statement, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger praised the membership and local union leadership for their solid support.

“We entered these negotiations with a clear mandate from our membership,” Gettelfinger said. “With their help and solidarity, we were able to achieve our goals. We protected jobs, wages and benefits for both active and retired General Motors workers — and we helped protect middle-class manufacturing jobs in communities throughout the United States.”

Gettelfinger had set a Wednesday deadline for the locals to complete voting on the deal that UAW and GM negotiators reached Sept. 26 after a two-day strike.

The new agreement, which affects 73,000 hourly workers at more than 80 of GM’s U.S. facilities, marks a radical departure from recent UAW deals with the Detroit automakers, allowing GM to create a second tier of lower-paid workers and to relieve itself of its $50 billion retiree health-care burden by 2010.

GM issued a statement confirming that the contract had been ratified, including by autoworkers at General Motors’ Lordstown assembly and fabricating plants.

GM has told autoworkers that it plans to bring a new subcompact to the Lordstown complex in 2009 and two new midsize models there in 2010.

Analysts said the midsize cars are expected to be new Pontiac and Cadillac models, designed to compete with the BMW 3 Series.

Meanwhile, the UAW said Wednesday it agreed on a tentative four-year contract with Chrysler after a strike that sent thousands of workers in Ohio and around the U.S. to the picket lines for almost six hours.

A person with knowledge of the Chrysler LLC agreement said it includes some guarantees that vehicles will be produced at U.S. factories, a company-funded union-run trust that will pay much of Chrysler’s $18 billion in long-term retiree health-care costs, and a lower wage scale for some newly hired workers.

The new product guarantees, which translate into job security for union workers, are in many cases only for the life of current products, said the person, who requested anonymity because the contract has not been ratified by union members.

Gettelfinger said the strike against Chrysler, which is 80.1 percent owned by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, would end immediately and workers should report for their next available shift.

Gettelfinger wouldn’t release any details of the contract, but Chrysler said the tentative agreement includes the establishment of a UAW-managed trust that will administer retiree health care. The newly private company didn’t say how much money it will contribute to the trust.

UAW members at 19 of 24 U.S. Chrysler factories and several other facilities left their jobs for the picket lines at 11 a.m. Wednesday. That included at the Chrysler Stamping Plant in Twinsburg in Northeast Ohio and Chrysler’s Toledo Machining plant in suburban Perrysburg.