UAW Picks DaimlerChrysler to Be Lead in Contract Talks
The United Auto Workers chose DaimlerChrysler as the lead auto maker for contract talks that will set an industrywide pattern, and the two sides will probably reach a settlement before their current agreement ends Wednesday, union and company sources who requested anonymity said Sunday.
UAW President Stephen Yokich met with DaimlerChrysler executives to work toward a contract that is likely to include lifetime employment guarantees and 3% annual raises over the next three to four years, the sources said. Talks recessed Sunday, with round-the-clock negotiations scheduled to start today.
“Negotiations are continuing, but it’s our policy not to comment on specifics,” said David Barnas, a spokesman for DaimlerChrysler, the No. 3 auto maker in the U.S.
UAW officials met with General Motors Corp., and a contract is expected to be reached soon after the DaimlerChrysler agreement, the sources said. Though there still could be labor trouble this fall at Ford Motor Co. over its plans to spin off a parts unit, the talks so far have been the smoothest in recent memory.
Three-year contracts covering 370,000 workers at the three companies expire at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Auto makers typically vie to be the first to reach a new UAW contract because it enables them to shape industrywide pay, benefits and work rules to suit their own needs. Yokich last week called initial contract offers at DaimlerChrysler and GM the best he’d ever seen, and the UAW has proceeded with the two on more or less parallel negotiations.
UAW spokesman Bob Barbee confirmed that Yokich met directly with DaimlerChrysler this weekend but added that it didn’t mean bargaining stopped at GM. “You can get a whole lot done over the telephone,” Barbee said.
Since 1991, the UAW has waged more than a dozen factory-level strikes at GM, including a pair of walkouts last year that cost GM $2 billion and a chunk of market share.
Since last year’s strikes, however, not a single UAW local has requested permission from union headquarters to call a strike against GM.
The basic shape of the emerging settlement was suggested by UAW’s recent agreement at Rolls-Royce, which makes aircraft engines, according to union and company bargainers.
The UAW is likely to accept a four-year contract rather than the three-year pacts that have been the norm, the bargainers said. It’s also expected to accept three annual base-wage increases of 3%, plus a lump-sum payment equal to 3% of base wages that may be paid in the first year as a signing bonus. GM assemblers now make $21 an hour.
