United Auto Workers, General Motors reach contract agreement

“First and foremost, as America struggles with record levels of unemployment, we aimed to protect the jobs of our members – to guarantee good American jobs at a good American company,” UAW President Bob King said in a statement. “And we have done that. This contract will get our members who have been laid off back to work, will create new jobs in our communities and will bring work back to the United States from other countries.”

Details of the agreement are being withheld until UAW members have had the opportunity to review it. While the union’s website does not provide specifics of the tentative agreement, it does list several highlights:

•–The pact protects the retirement plan, which GM had sought to weaken.

•–The new deal maintains members’ health care benefits and made some significant improvements.

•–The agreement also includes improved profit sharing with far greater transparency than in the past.

Two years ago GM and Chrysler were hanging by a thread when President Obama stepped in and invested federal funds to help turn the companies and the U.S. auto industry around, protect the auto supplier base and keep good paying jobs in America.

“When GM was struggling, our members shared in the sacrifice. Now that the company is posting profits again, our members want to share in the success,” said UAW Vice President Joe Ashton, who directs the union’s General Motors Department.

“To be clear, GM is prosperous because of its workers. It’s the workers and the quality of the work they do, along with the sacrifices they made, that have returned this company to profitability.”

A goal of UAW bargaining was to ensure continued success of the company while providing members with a fair share of the success. Observers said the tentative agreement proves that collective bargaining works for companies, for employees and for the country overall.

The UAW played a central role in building America’s middle class, the union said, but as long as workers are being forced to compete with nonunion workers earning lower pay, fewer benefits and often in temporary jobs, downward pressure continues on all autoworkers. People working at foreign-owned auto plants must have the same opportunity to join a union as the employees at GM, King said.

“The pathway to rebuilding America’s middle class and creating long-term job security for all American autoworkers must include organizing workers at the foreign-owned automakers operating without unions in the United States,” he said.

James Parks writes for the AFL-CIO news blog, where this article originally appeared.

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