UAW officials vote to recommend preliminary 4-year contract for workers

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DETROIT-general Motors Strike workers will remain on the picket line for days until they vote on a tentative contract with the company.

Factory officials from the United auto workers Union voted to recommend the agreement to members at an afternoon meeting in Detroit on Thursday. But they also voted not to return to the factories unless members approved the deal.

About 49,000 workers have been on strike for more than a month, paralyzing GM’s U.S. plants and costing the company about $ 2 billion.

Details were posted Thursday on the United Auto Workers website as factory-level Union officials met to decide if they would approve the deal. Workers went on strike on September 16, striking at American manufacturing and costing it about $ 2 billion.

The Detroit Hamtramck plant that GM wanted to close will remain open and a new electric pickup will be built there. Meanwhile, the Lordstown area will get a new factory that is expected to employ 1,000 workers. In addition, a company called Lordstown Motors could also set up a factory that would initially employ 400 workers. But none would come close to the closed Lordstown Assembly plant, which two years ago employed 4,500 people making the Chevrolet Cruze compact car.

The deal cuts the eight years it takes for new employees to reach full pay and gives temporary workers full – time jobs after three years of continuous work. Workers hired after 2007 who pay a lower wage rate will hit the top wage of $ 32.32 per hour for four years or less. The deal also provides a $ 60,000 early retirement incentive for up to 2,000 eligible workers.

The preliminary agreement between GM and the UAW will now be used as a template for negotiations with GM’s Crosstown rivals, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. Typically, the guidelines carry over to two other companies and cover about 140,000 auto workers nationwide. It’s unclear which company the Union will trade with next, or whether there will be another strike.

The strike at GM immediately brought the company’s American plants to a halt, and within a week, began to hamper production in Mexico and Canada. Analysts at investment services KeyBanc estimated GM’s production shutdown at 250,000 to 300,000 vehicles. That’s too much for the company to compensate for overtime or increased Assembly line speed.

GM and the Union are negotiating at a time of troubling uncertainties for the U.S. auto industry. Driven by the longest economic expansion in American history, auto sales appear to have peaked and are now moving in a different direction. GM and other automakers are also trying to make the transition to electric and Autonomous vehicles.

Meanwhile, President Donald trump’s trade war with China and its tariffs on steel and aluminum imports have led to higher prices for auto companies. A revamped North American free trade deal has stalled in Congress, raising doubts about the future of America’s auto and auto parts trade with Canada and Mexico, which totaled $257 billion last year.

Union negotiators voted to recommend the deal to the UAW’s International Executive Board, which will vote on the agreement. Union leaders from factories across the country will travel to Detroit to vote Thursday.

The earliest workers can return after that.

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