Vol. 79/No. 38      October 26, 2015

Autoworkers had surprised both the bosses and union officials by voting down the first proposal by nearly two to one. It was the first time a national contract negotiated between UAW officials and a major carmaker was rejected in more than 30 years.

Currently new hires start out at just over half the pay of workers hired before 2007. Under the rejected contract, they would have topped out at $25.35 an hour, well below the $29.76 top pay of the so-called traditional workers. The new offer says they would receive the same wage as “traditional workers” after eight years.

The proposal divides “in-progression workers” — those hired in 2007 or later — into eight groups, each one at a different pay rate.

“Traditional” workers would get a $4,000 signing bonus; workers on the second tier would get $3,000.

The first-tier workers will get raises of 3 percent in the first and third years of the contract, with 4 percent productivity bonuses in the second and fourth years.

“Tier-two workers get a lot in this contract, and they deserve it,” said Rich Cahalane, a tool store crib attendant in a Kokomo, Indiana, transmission plant, in a phone interview Oct. 12. “The company has made a lot of money today because it paid second-tier workers so little.” Cahalane has worked for the company for 30 years.

Workers were told the second wage tier would be capped at 25 percent of the workforce after the 2011 contract. But almost 45 percent, or approximately 16,500, of Fiat Chrysler’s 36,600 union production workers are second tier.

“Second-tier workers may be the majority here,” Cahalane said. “They opened a new transmission plant in Tipton, Indiana. Most of those workers were new.”

“They made some improvements in the wage proposal for workers in the second tier,” Alan Epstein, who has worked at the Toledo Jeep plant for more than 30 years, said by phone Oct. 12. “They promise that second-tier workers will be at top pay in eight years. Chrysler clearly does not want to see a strike. But it’s a four-year contract, so it will all be up for grabs during the next contract negotiations.”

Many workers interviewed during a shift change at the Belvidere, Illinois, Chrysler plant said they expected the new contract proposal to pass.

The UAW uses pattern bargaining to negotiate contracts with the Big Three auto companies: Fiat Chrysler, Ford and GM. Once the first contract is achieved, the idea is that the other two will follow suit. Fiat Chrysler, while increasing sales for 44 straight months, is seen as the weakest of the three.

Suggesting that Ford workers will get a better deal than those at Fiat Chrysler, UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles told the Detroit Free Press that the Fiat Chrysler accord “is only a pattern and the tentative agreement reached with Ford will be UAW-Ford specific, aimed at addressing concerns with the current agreement and securing gains for our membership.”

Voting on the Fiat Chrysler accord is scheduled in each plant on Oct. 20 or 21.
 
 
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