Union leaders to meet in Detroit today

Staff/wire report

DETROIT

United Auto Workers Local union leaders will meet today in Detroit to see the tentative agreement General Motors and the union came up with late Sunday.

Once discussed, the union leaders, including Glenn Johnson, head of the UAW Local 1112, who represents 2,800 to 3,000 workers at the GM Lordstown Assembly Plant, and Robert Morales, head of the UAW Local 1714, who represents about 1,400 fabrication plant workers at Lordstown, will decide whether to move forward with the agreement or send it back to the negotiating team.

After that, details of the agreement should be released, and ratification votes will take place across 63 U.S. GM plants, including the Lordstown plant where the best-selling Chevrolet Cruze is built. The new contract covers 52,600 GM employees.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Morales said. “The membership is eagerly awaiting the details of the agreement.”

The tentative agreement was reached minutes before a Sunday night deadline, averting a strike.

The new four-year contract is expected to largely mirror the one ratified last week by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in terms of basic wages. In that agreement, all workers can eventually reach a top pay of $29 an hour in eight years or less, eliminating their despised two-tier wage system.

There is also an expectation that items such as signing and performance bonuses, lump-sum payments and profit sharing will be richer because GM is a larger, more profitable company.

Few details have been released, but the union said it “secured significant gains and job security protections.”

The company also was pleased that an agreement was reached.

Contributor: Kalea Hall, staff writer.