DEAL AVERTS CHRYSLER, UAW STRIKE

Associated Press

DETROIT

Fiat Chrysler has avoided an expensive strike at its U.S. plants after reaching a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

The union announced the agreement just after 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, which was the deadline the union had set to reach a new deal or possibly go on strike.

Details of the agreement weren’t immediately released.

Local union leaders will vote on the tentative agreement Friday at a meeting in Detroit.

This is the second agreement FCA and the union have reached. Last week, UAW members overwhelmingly rejected a previous tentative agreement, saying it didn’t go far enough in restoring benefits workers lost in previous contracts.

After that contract was rejected by 65 percent of the workers who voted, the union decided to restart talks with FCA instead of moving on to either Ford or General Motors.

The UAW represents around 40,000 FCA factory workers at 23 U.S. plants.

FCA workers haven’t gone on strike since 2007, when workers walked off the job for seven hours during contract negotiations.

In 2011, they were prohibited from striking under terms of FCA’s government-funded bankruptcy.

When they kicked off contract talks in July, both UAW President Dennis Williams and FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said they would consider it a personal failure if they can’t reach an agreement and workers strike.

The union’s four-year contracts with FCA, Ford and GM expired on Sept. 14, but workers have remained on the job under a contract extension.