GM's tentative contract with the UAW appears poised to pass but barely

Update: GM UAW members ratify contract after 54.7% approval in vote

The tentative contract between the United Auto Workers and General Motors appears to be headed for ratification — but narrowly.

That's what a union leader told the Detroit Free Press late Wednesday afternoon, but the person declined to be named because this person is not authorized to speak publicly. But with most of GM plants having submitted vote totals, the yes votes outnumber the total no votes by about 2,600 votes, according to the UAW's GM vote tracker.

There are a handful of small GM facilities with a total of about 1,000 members that still need to vote. But even if they all vote no, the agreement appears poised to pass by at least 1,500 votes, this person said.

“Arlington came through yesterday and put us over the top," this person said.

At Arlington Assembly in Texas, where GM builds its big SUVs, 2,051 members there voted to ratify the deal and 1,323 voted against it, according to vote tracker on www.uaw.org/gm2023. The vote tracker indicated late Wednesday that there were a total of 16,661 votes in favor of ratification and 14,042 votes against it.

"This is fascinating. The fact that GM is at the edge, it may pass, but it’s a closer than comfortable margin with some of the large locals voting no — the issue is what happened?" said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert and professor emeritus as the University of California-Berkeley. "It may not be a single thing. It may be a number of things that came together."

Why some voted 'no'

Shaiken said there are many "hot-button issues" among GM employees such as reinstating pensions, getting rid of different tiers of wages and so on that if a member gets hung up on one of the issues, they will vote against ratification.

GM spokesman David Barnas declined to comment on the narrow vote margins until the UAW completes its ratification process.

But GM's crosstown rivals Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis are clocking in wider margins to victory, according to the UAW tracker on their web pages. At Ford, the UAW reports that total yes votes as of Wednesday afternoon were 17,968 and total no votes stood at 9,223. At Stellantis, the UAW reports total yes votes are at 8,869 and total no votes are at 3,361.

The UAW locals for GM have until 4 p.m. Thursday to submit results with final ratification results expected later that evening. Ford's final results are expected later this week and Stellantis' final numbers could come early next week, according to the union person.

The tentative agreement with GM largely mirrors the deals with Ford and Stellantis. The union has said the agreement grants 25% in base wage increases through April 2028, and will cumulatively raise the top wage by 33% compounded with estimated cost-of-living adjustment to over $42 an hour. The starting wage will increase by 70% compounded with estimated COLA, to over $30 an hour.

But union members at GM's Wentzville Assembly, Flint Assembly and Fort Wayne Assembly plants voted against it. GM makes its pickups at those three plants.

At Fort Wayne, UAW Local 2209 Shop Chairman Rich LeTourneau told the Free Press the reason for the rejection there was that traditional members — those hired before 2007 — wanted the bigger wage gains to come in the first two years of the agreement rather than waiting for the total 25% gain across 4.5 years.

They also wanted a bigger contribution to their pensions, LeTourneau said. The contract is offering a $5 gain to the pension multiplier. It is presently $54 so it would rise to $59. That means for someone who worked at GM for 30 years, their pension would rise from $1,620 a month to $1,770 a month. Some considered it too small of a gain, LeTourneau said.

For those members who are currently "in progression," LeTourneau said they wanted the pension reinstated and retiree health care, neither of which happened in this contract.

A $50,000 question

There is also the issue of the buyout. GM will offer three company special attrition programs (SAPs) from January 2024 through the life of the agreement that include a $50,000 lump sum pretax retirement incentive for traditional employees who meet the normal or early retirement eligibility requirements.

But there are no specific dates for when those employees can take advantage of the SAPs, said the union person who cited that as a reason for some members voting no.

"Does it happen in March or in November?" the person said. "It’s just sometime after Jan. 1. They want an exact date."

According to Wayne State University business professor Marick Masters, there is a combination of factors that likely contributed to the relative closeness of the outcome of the ratification vote at GM compared with Ford and Stellantis.

"These factors include the demographics of the workplace as related to how workers benefited from the contract," Masters said. In other words, some of those hired before 2007 believe they get less in the contract, a 33% raise in their overall wage package in the 4.5 years whereas a temporary employee is seeing a 160% increase, but that's because they are at a lower base.

A history of bad relations with GM

Then there is history itself, said Harry Katz, professor of labor relations at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"GM has long had a more contentious relationship with the UAW versus Ford and Chrysler, especially at the corporate level," Katz told the Free Press. "Execs there have long been less sensitive to union leader needs and the value of building a trust-based relationship with the union."

It didn't help that UAW President Shawn Fain singled out GM as the representation of greed, said Erik Gordon, a labor expert and business professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

"Fain pointed his finger at GM's CEO, personally, and called her out by name more than he went after the other CEOs," Gordon said. "In August, he said, 'Mary Barra made $200 million in the last nine years. Our wages went backwards.'  He used her as his personification of greed."

Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University, agreed with Gordon. But Wheaton added that GM hurt its cause by making significant efforts to send information directly to employees and undermine the UAW bargaining process more so than Stellantis and Ford did.

"GM made multiple videos, presentations, and direct mail efforts claiming they were being genuine at the bargaining table," Wheaton said.

Also damaging GM's reputation with the UAW membership was after Fain announced that GM agreed to allow workers at its joint venture battery plants to be included in the master contract, GM never confirmed it and then "fought over language weeks later," Wheaton said. That extended negotiations and "put a bad taste" in the UAW negotiators' mouths, Wheaton said.

All agreed, it’s hard to pinpoint what went wrong and it looks like this may still pass, but it might be closer than what is comfortable.

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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.