GM, UAW reach deal

Staff and wire report

DETROIT

General Motors Co. and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract late Friday.

Details weren’t immediately released, but the union said the contract will ensure that laid-off workers will be hired back. The union said the contract also will improve health care benefits and profit-sharing plans.

“When GM was struggling, our members shared in the sacrifice. Now that the company is posting profits again, our members want to share in the success,” UAW Vice President Joe Ashton, the chief negotiator with GM, said in a statement. “The wages and benefits we negotiated in this tentative agreement reflect the fact that it was UAW members who helped turn this company around.”

The UAW announced the deal just after 11 p.m. Friday, after eight weeks of talks.

The contract covers 48,500 GM workers in the U.S, including about 4,000 at the GM Lordstown complex. GM was the first of the Detroit Three to reach an agreement with the UAW. Chrysler Group and Ford Motor Co. are still negotiating.

The UAW says the contract improves health care benefits for workers and protects their retirement benefits. It also says there is an improved profit-sharing plan.

Workers must vote on the plan before it will take effect. Union leaders from around the country have been asked to come to Detroit on Tuesday to learn the details of the contract so they can explain it to their members. GM says a vote is expected in the next week to 10 days.

“We used a creative problem solving approach to reach an agreement that addresses the needs of employees and positions our business for long-term success,” Cathy Clegg, GM’s vice president of labor relations. “We worked hard for a contract that recognizes the realities of today’s marketplace, enabling GM to continue to invest in U.S. manufacturing and provide good jobs to thousands of Americans.”

The Lordstown plant is running three shifts and workers are also coming in on Saturdays as the plant produces the Chevrolet Cruze, one of GM’s top-selling models and one of the best-selling compact cars on the global market.

The UAW’s contract with GM expired Wednesday, but the union had extended it indefinitely while negotiators continued to talk. In the past, workers might have gone on strike when the deadline passed. But this year, GM and Chrysler workers weren’t allowed to strike over wages under the terms of the companies’ government bailouts two years ago. These talks are the first since GM and Chrysler needed government aid to make it through bankruptcy protection in 2009.

Talks between GM, Ford and Chrysler determine the wages for 112,500 factory workers at all three companies.

They also set the bar for wages at auto parts companies, U.S. factories run by foreign automakers and other manufacturers, which employ hundreds of thousands of people.