UAW and Axle Maker Reach Pact, Avert Strike
American Axle Inc. and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative contract accord minutes before a strike deadline Monday, averting a work stoppage that would have forced General Motors Corp. to halt some car and truck production.
The two sides reached the agreement 15 minutes before the union’s 7 a.m. strike deadline, after bargaining for most of the weekend, the union said. The UAW had extended its original Saturday deadline because negotiators were making progress.
UAW President Stephen Yokich and Vice President Richard Shoemaker released a statement describing the pact as “an excellent new agreement.”
Closely held American Axle supplies rear- and four-wheel-drive axles to 16 of GM’s 24 North American car and truck plants. American Axle also supplies axle parts used on Ford Motor Co.’s rear-wheel-drive cars and trucks. A strike would have halted some output at Ford as well.
“That means the supply lines to our plants remain uninterrupted,” GM spokesman Chuck Licari said.
The proposed settlement comes in the first set of contract talks between the UAW and American Axle, which was formed in 1994 when a former Chrysler Corp. executive and other investors bought five plants from GM.
The hourly workers at American Axle had been covered under GM’s agreement with the UAW. American Axle wanted to pay new workers less than the approximate $20 an hour in the GM-UAW agreement, but the union resisted.
Details weren’t released, but a union official said the agreement matches the wage provisions of the contract GM and the UAW settled in November. Employees are expected to vote on the settlement this week.
American Axle has about 7,700 hourly workers and $2 billion in annual sales. It makes axles, drive shafts and other parts.
The new national contract covers workers at all five plants. They are in Detroit, Hamtramck and Three Rivers, Mich., and in Tonawanda and Buffalo, N.Y.
Negotiations continued over the weekend between the UAW and another automotive supplier, Johnson Controls Inc. About 500 UAW members are on strike at Johnson Controls plants in Plymouth, Mich., and Oberlin, Ohio. Those plants make seats for Ford Expedition sport-utility vehicles and Econoline vans. Expedition production resumed over the weekend using seats from Lear Corp., a Johnson Controls competitor.
Two Econoline plants in Lorain and Avon Lake, Ohio, that employ 2,800 Ford workers remain closed because of the seat shortage.
