United Auto Workers reject contract deal with Fiat Chrysler

DETROIT (AP)

United Auto Workers union members rejected a proposed contract with Fiat Chrysler in a rebuke of union leaders who had praised the deal.

Official totals weren’t released, but workers at many large factories voted against the pact by large margins, making victory impossible.

Late Wednesday, members at the last plant to vote in Belvidere, Illinois, turned down the contract. The local union’s website says 65 percent of the 2,980 workers who voted were against it. Members at large assembly plants in Toledo, Ohio, and Sterling Heights, Michigan, also rejected the pact in voting Tuesday. Only a handful of local unions voted in favor.

A UAW spokesman said final results would be released on Thursday.

UAW leaders summoned local presidents and bargainers to a meeting in Detroit on Thursday to decide the next move. Fiat Chrysler’s 40,000 union workers could go on strike, continue bargaining with the company or the focus could shift to General Motors or Ford. Union workers at all three companies have stayed on the job under contract extensions since Sept. 14.