General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis are expected to offer the United Auto Workers (UAW) union a deal that mirrors the agreement recently struck with Ford.
UAW members and Ford reached a tentative labor agreement Wednesday, the union announced, ending six weeks of strikes at the company. The deal includes a 25 percent wage increase over the course of four years, with 11 percent coming in the first year. Cost of living increases could lift the pay to 33 percent, UAW said.
If GM and Stellantis don’t follow Ford’s lead UAW President Shawn Fain will add factories to its partial strikes, The Associated Press reported.
“Fain does not strike me as someone who is going to be willing to concede anything to the other two automakers to break the pattern,” Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University, told the AP.
More strikes could hurt the companies, particularly the profitable truck plants GM has. GM said Tuesday that it’s losing about $200 million per week due to the strike, the AP reported.
UAW Ford employees will go back to work pending the tentative deal, but 57,000 members must approve the agreement with a majority vote for it to go into place.
Ford confirmed the deal in a statement late Wednesday. GM and Stellantis are likely feeling pressure after President Biden applauded the Ford deal in a public statement.
According to the AP, GM has agreed to pull its new electric vehicle battery factories into the UAW’s national contract, which unionized them. Electric vehicle production is one of the key points for the striking workers, as the industry prepares to ramp up production in the coming years.
