Texas:
Stellantis and the striking United Auto Workers union have reached a tentative agreement similar to the one struck with Ford earlier this week, the union said Saturday — allowing members to return to work at stranded factories.
The tentative agreement, reached after 44 days of strike action simultaneously targeting Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers, includes a 25 percent increase in base wages by 2028, the union said in a statement.
Cost-of-living adjustments will cumulatively increase the top wage by 33 percent, to more than $42 per hour.
Like the Ford deal, any tentative agreement with European auto giant Stellantis would have to be ratified through a vote of UAW members.
But in the meantime, striking Stellantis workers, like those at Ford, “will return to work while the agreement goes through the ratification process,” the UAW said.
The wage increase in the tentative agreement is lower than the 40 percent that UAW President Shawn Fain had sought when the union launched the strike on September 15, in the first-ever simultaneous strike at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
However, it is far above the nine percent increase that Ford, for example, initially proposed in August.
President Joe Biden welcomed the agreement.
“I applaud the UAW and Stellantis for coming together after hard-fought and good-faith negotiations to reach a historic agreement that guarantees workers the wages, benefits, dignity and respect they deserve,” he said in a statement.
“Once again, we have accomplished what we were told just a few weeks ago was impossible,” Fain said, adding that “we have begun to turn the tide in the war against the American working class.”
About 5,000 jobs will be added by Stellantis over the course of the contract, Fain said, a reversal from the job cuts the automaker was seeking before the negotiations.
After reaching a tentative agreement with Ford on Wednesday, the UAW had said it would encourage workers to return to their jobs at the factories it targeted with the strike to put pressure on General Motors and Stellantis.
More than 45,000 workers were on strike ahead of the Ford deal, part of a strategy in which the UAW has gradually increased the number of factories targeted for business interruptions in the quest for better conditions.
GM now remains the only automaker without a tentative deal.
Earlier this week, a strike was declared at the Arlington, Texas, plant.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)