The U.A.W. and Ford on Tuesday announced a tentative agreement on a four-year contract that substantially mirrors the deal struck last month at G.M.
The union’s president, Bob King, said he anticipated reaching a settlement soon with Chrysler, the smallest and least profitable of the Detroit car companies.
“We want to go in and finish the job at Chrysler very quickly,” Mr. King said at a news conference here on Tuesday to announce details of the Ford pact.
About 41,000 union workers at Ford will vote over the next two weeks on whether to approve the agreement, which calls for the company to create 5,750 entry-level jobs in the United States over the four years of the contract. Those jobs are in addition to 6,250 positions that Ford previously said it would add over the next two years.
Besides increasing jobs and investment in its facilities in the United States, Ford also agreed to raise the hourly wages of entry-level employees to $19 by the end of the contract, from about $15 now.
Longtime auto workers, who earn about $28 an hour, did not get any increase in base wages. Instead, Ford agreed to give workers with at least one year on the job a $6,000 bonus for signing the new contract as well as annual $1,500 payments beginning next year and through 2015.
The bonuses are higher than those agreed to by G.M., which is still in the early stages of its comeback from a government bailout and bankruptcy protection in 2009.
Analysts said Ford had to sweeten its payments to workers because the company has posted better financial results than its crosstown rivals and rewarded its top executives with bonuses and stock options.
Ford agreed to pay the first six months of 2011 profit-sharing for workers — about $3,700 a worker — in November, and the balance next year. Usually, the automakers make profit-sharing payments after the calendar year.
John Fleming, Ford’s head of global manufacturing and labor affairs, said Tuesday that the contract was meant to reward workers and improve the company’s cost structure.
“We really believe that it’s fair to our employees and recognizes the contribution that they’ve made to the success of the Ford Motor Company,” Mr. Fleming said at a briefing. “But we’re also pleased that it will continue to improve our competitiveness directly here in the United States.”
Ford said it would invest an additional $4.8 billion in its United States plants beyond previously announced capital expenditures. Several factories received guarantees of new products in the contract, including an Ohio assembly plant that will build medium-duty trucks that had been slated for production in Mexico.
“Our membership not only wanted good wages, they wanted to make sure they had security in their jobs,” said Jimmy Settles, the U.A.W.’s chief negotiator with Ford. Ford officials declined to say whether the contract directly matched what G.M. achieved in terms of holding the line on labor costs. G.M. executives have said their deal will add about 1 percent to labor costs annually over the life of the contract.
Mr. King said he believed the Ford deal followed the pattern set by G.M. “The overall costs are very comparable,” he said.
The success of the Detroit labor talks is seen as significant because of the industry’s gradual comeback in the face of strong economic headwinds. The union tried to extract bonuses and new jobs without creating additional costs, said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
“This is a good contract in very bad times, and that’s an unusual achievement,” Mr. Shaiken said. “It makes the companies more competitive and allows the workers to share in the success.”
Mr. King expressed confidence that Ford workers would approve the deal. G.M. employees ratified their agreement last week by almost two to one.
The negotiations may be trickier at Chrysler, which has taken longer than G.M. to turn around after its own federal bailout and trip through bankruptcy.
Now controlled by the Italian automaker Fiat, Chrysler is still struggling to achieve solid profitability. Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of both companies, has said Chrysler could not afford contracts as rich as those at G.M. and Ford.
“The contract at Chrysler will not be identical to Ford’s deal,” Mr. Shaiken said. “But it is likely to be the same framework tailored to fit Chrysler.”
The union and Chrysler have agreed to extend their current contract until Oct. 19. Mr. King played down the possibility that the U.A.W. or Chrysler would have to seek arbitration to reach an agreement.
“Sergio doesn’t want to turn it over to a third party to decide, and I don’t want to turn it over to a third party,” Mr. King said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 4, 2011
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that $2.4 billion of the $6.2 billion investments that Ford would make had already been announced. Actually, $1.4 billion was already announced.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ff0e22a380278ff62cda7cc06489664a
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