“This is a general framework and pattern that we will go to Ford and Chrysler with,” said the president, Bob King, at a media briefing here. “I’m confident we can put together an agreement with both.”
Negotiations at Ford and Chrysler could take several more days. Mr. King said the union had not yet decided which company to focus on first.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. King briefed local union officials from G.M. plants across the country on the details of the new four-year agreement reached on Sept. 16. The head of the U.A.W.’s G.M. division, Joe Ashton, said he expected the company’s 48,000 union workers to vote on the pact by next week, and expressed confidence that it would be approved.
“What we were looking for was jobs, jobs, jobs, and that’s what we came out of it with,” Mr. Ashton said.
The union estimates that G.M. will create or retain an additional 6,400 jobs over the next four years, mostly by hiring new, entry-level employees.
G.M. currently has about 1,900 second-tier workers, who are paid a starting wage of about $14 an hour. Under the new agreement, their base hourly wage will go up to nearly $16 immediately after ratification, and increase to about $19 by the end of the contract.
The entry-level workers also will get enhanced health care coverage in the new agreement.
Over all, every U.A.W. worker at G.M. will receive a $5,000 bonus for signing the contract, as well as $1,000 “inflation protection” payments in each of the last three years of the agreement.
G.M. also agreed to modifications in its profit-sharing formula for all workers.
Under the old system, payments were calculated based on profits made solely in the United States. The new contract calls for workers to get about $1,000 in profit sharing for every $1 billion that G.M. earns in its larger North American operations, which include Canada and Mexico.
Mr. King said that workers were guaranteed at least a $3,500 profit-sharing check in 2012 based on profits already earned this year by G.M.
Because it is smaller and less profitable than G.M., Chrysler is believed to be seeking an initial bonus smaller than $5,000.
The union is unable to call a strike at G.M. and Chrysler as conditions of the companies’ government bailouts. Ford, which turned around without the benefit of federal aid, does not have similar protection from a strike.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b4c3b41aa8e1172e434bb2ba9470a948
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