UAW Expected to Ratify Tentative Fiat Chrysler Pact

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Chances look good that the 40,000 members of the United Auto Workers at Fiat Chrysler Automotive will ratify a tentative contract reached before the strike deadline at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, though perhaps not by a wide margin.

Details of the tentative pact, described as “one of the richest ever negotiated,” were released Friday, The Detroit News reports.

UAW leaders gathered in Warren Friday “overwhelmingly supported” the deal, union president Dennis Williams told the newspaper.

It’s unclear when union members, who include 36,6000 hourly production workers, will vote on the four-year agreement.

Among the issues worked out were an end over time to a contested two-tier pay system, a new profit-sharing program, and a bigger ratification bonus for veteran workers. A proposed health care co-op that would have pooled autoworkers at Detroit’s Big Three automakers was deleted.

Art Wheaton, a labor expert at Cornell University, told the newspaper the union “made some significant gains” in the agreement.

“They can say we took (Fiat Chrysler) to a strike, and now they’ve made a pathway to parity, but I still think it’s going to be a tough ratification vote,” Wheaton said. “I don’t think it will be overwhelming.”

In Michigan, FCA has manufacturing plants in Warren, Trenton, Sterling Heights, Detroit and Dundee. Its North American headquarters are in Auburn Hills.

Below, read highlights of the tentative agreement.

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