UAW REACHES TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ON RECORD CONTRACT WITH FORD MOTOR COMPANY
The UAW has announced a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Company after 41 days on strike at the Big Three.
In a video address by UAW President Shawn Fain and UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, the union leaders gave some details of the agreement, while outlining next steps in the ratification process.
“For months we’ve said that record profits mean record contracts. And UAW family, our Stand Up Strike has delivered. What started at three plants at midnight on September 15, has become a national movement,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “We won things nobody thought possible. Since the strike began, Ford put 50% more on the table than when we walked out. This agreement sets us on a new path to make things right at Ford, at the Big Three, and across the auto industry. Together, we are turning the tide for the working class in this country.”
“Our union has united in a way we haven’t seen in years. From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, our members came together to tell the Big Three with one voice that record profits mean a record contract,” said UAW Vice President Chuck Browning. “Thanks to the power of our members on the picket line and the threat of more strikes to come, we have won the most lucrative agreement per member since Walter Reuther was president.”
The gains in the deal, as outlined by Fain and Browning, are valued at more than four times the gains from the 2019 contract, and provide more in base wage increases than Ford workers have received in the past 22 years. The agreement grants 25% in base wage increases through April 2028, and will cumulatively raise the top wage by over 30% to more than $40 an hour, and raise the starting wage by 68%, to over $28 an hour.
The lowest-paid workers at Ford will see a raise of more than 150% over the life of the agreement, with some workers receiving an immediate 85% increase immediately upon ratification.
The agreement reinstates major benefits lost during the Great Recession, including Cost-of-Living Allowances and a three-year Wage Progression, as well as killing divisive wage tiers in the union. It improves retirement for current retirees, those workers with pensions, and those who have 401(k) plans. It also includes a historic right to strike over plant closures, a first for the union.
Ford workers will return to work while the agreement goes through the ratification process, with the UAW National Ford Council convening in Detroit to review the agreement.
The Stand Up strike continues at Stellantis and GM, where members fight for a fair agreement that honors the historic contributions and sacrifices of America’s autoworkers.
