Workers at the Chinese-owned Nexteer plant in Michigan have ratified a new contract, averting a crisis that could have led to the shutdown of some of General Motors and FCA U.S. busiest assembly plants.
As it was, the ratification of the five-year contract, which guaranteed all 3,300 hourly workers at the Nexteer manufacturing complex in Saginaw, Michigan, a pay increase, was hardly a sure thing. Roughly 61% of the workers voted for the contract even with the Christmas holidays looming.
The uncertainty of a potential walkout during the holidays appears to have helped convince some workers to vote for the contract despite lingering unhappiness about the terms of the agreement, which critics charge locked workers into a culture of low wages and failed to put a check on scheduling abuse.
Members of UAW Local 699 had turned down a previous deal on Dec. 6, leading to a one-day strike that threatened to shut down some North American production at GM and FiatChrysler. The Saginaw plant makes a variety of steering-related components.
The strike that forced both makers to curtail production of some truck and sport-utility vehicles that use steering-gear components manufactured by Nexteer. With the pressure from GM and FCA mounting, the union agreed to suspend the strike after the two sides reached agreement on a second tentative contract proposal.
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The new agreement eliminates the cost sharing on health-care benefits that members of the United Auto Workers Local 699 found objectionable in the rejected agreement. Workers belonging to an HMO or PPO will pay nothing extra, according to the contract summary posted on line by the UAW.
The new tentative agreement also includes pay increase for all workers. Wages of workers on the first step will be boosted from $12 to $14 per hour, while wages workers on the second step for production workers will go from $14.50 per hour to $15.50 and legacy workers, whose started working at the plant before 2007 will get a $1 per hour pay increase to $17.76. The signing bonus also was increased by $500 to $2,000, the summary noted.
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Workers are also guaranteed modest annual pay increases over the five-year-term of the agreement and new hires will be considered full-time employees after 90 days and the starting pay would be raised from by $1 per hour to $13 per hour.
The union was right in hoping the pay increases would satisfy employees despite the overwhelming no vote that followed the first tentative agreement. The contract also includes a series of changes that will put additional curbs on the power of supervisors on the plant floor in Nexteer’s Saginaw manufacturing complex by tightening the lines of demarcation between the various skilled trades and putting new limits on the use of flex time.
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Representatives of Nexteer, which was purchased by Chinese investors from Delphi Automotive, had said they have been trying to balance off the company’s competitive position with a satisfactory economic package for employees.
