UAW Ratifies GM, Ford Contracts

The United Auto Workers union has declared its four-year contract with General Motors Co. ratified by a 55% margin, after the deal was adjusted to overcome concerns by skilled trades workers.

The original GM offer was accepted by 58% of production workers. But it was turned down by 59% of the much smaller skilled trades group, whose members worried the agreement would blur job classifications and seniority rights. The UAW’s executive board resolved those issues with GM late last week.

At Ford, UAW members ratified a similar four-year contract by a narrow 51% majority. Passage was aided by an 11th-hour push for passage from UAW leaders and was assured by strong support from the union’s big Local 600 in Dearborn, Mich.

Opponents to the Ford contract, pointing to Ford’s record profits, argued that reopening talks would lead to a better deal—a tactic that worked earlier in talks with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.

But union leaders and labor analysts warned that a revised pact would swap more pay now for fewer jobs and a likely cutback in Ford’s pledge to invest $9 billion in U.S. facilities over the next four years.

The Ford agreement gives each of the UAW’s 53,000 members at the company an $8,500 signing bonus and $1,500 advance on 2016 profit sharing. Like the pacts with FCA and GM, the deal also gives veteran workers their first pay raise in a decade, coupled with bonuses next year and in 2017. And it begins a process to equalize pay for new, so-called second-tier hires over eight years.