UAW Faces Tough Road After Failing To Reach Labor Deal With Fiat Chrysler

[Purveyor]

Mounting discontent among the United Auto Workers rank and file will complicate its leaders’ bid to recover from the defeat of a proposed labor agreement with No. 3 U.S. automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, UAW members said Friday.

UAW President Dennis Williams and its vice president for Fiat Chrysler, Norwood Jewell, told local union leaders during a meeting in Detroit Thursday evening that negotiators would convene Friday and approach the automaker, people familiar with the discussions said. Williams and other top union leaders didn’t discuss a strike at Fiat Chrysler in the near term, they said.

Meanwhile, workers at a Ford Motor Co pickup truck and commercial van factory near Kansas City, Mo. have threatened a walkout over local contract disputes for Sunday at noon local time.

Williams and the UAW made no public statement Friday about their next moves at Fiat Chrysler after 65 percent of UAW members rejected the proposed four-year deal. The union did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on whether negotiators had convened or approached the company on Friday.

The failure of the Fiat Chrysler contract highlights the tightrope that Williams and the UAW are walking. A strong recovery at the once-ailing Detroit automakers has failed to vanquish threats to union jobs from lower-wage workers in Mexico and non-union factories in the Southern United States.

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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/uaw-faces-tough-road-after-failing-to-reach-labor-deal-with-fiat-chrysler/

[MichMan]

1. Expectations too high

For clarification, I don't work for FCA, but do work for a supplier. These contract negotiations get constant media coverage in Detroit.

The UAW over promised and under delivered and the rank & file wasn't too impressed. I think expectations were too high; the Tier 1 employees wanted to make up for several years of no wage increases, & the Tier 2 expected they were going to get wage parity with Tier 1. Add in the UAW managed health care system with scant details and it was not surprising it was defeated. Rank and file seemed to distrust the UAW officials as much as they do FCA management. The UAW negotiated pretty decent wage increases for Tier 2, but not what the members were expecting.

The challenge now is that it is not certain that the next proposal will automatically be enhanced. The UAW may craft a contract with Ford or GM, and Chrysler may now potentially go last

[1939]

2. In the past

The UAW always targeted the automaker having the best year. The other two had to fall in line with the "pattern" and it then extended down to the smaller suppliers who settled for maybe 90% of the big 3 pattern.

[MichMan]

3. Why FCA

That is why the selection of FCA was a surprise. Not the one in the strongest position financially

[1939]

4. Surprised me too

Most of my family were tool and die makers for suppliers. Their wage and benefitssettlements were pretty much dictated by the pattern and the negotiations only argued about local issues. So many suppliers were driven to the wall in the GM and Chrylser bankruptcies that the ones reopening are all non-union. Never used to see that in Detroit.