Since September 15, the UAW union (United Auto Workers) has triggered a large-scale walkout that hits the three major American manufacturers in Detroit, Ford, GM and Stellantis. As the days and weeks pass, the effects are felt for manufacturers with an increasing number of employees joining the picket lines. However, as pressure mounted, Ford reached a tentative agreement with the UAW to end its employees’ strike.
A return to normal soon for Ford
Despite this news, it is important to note that the strike is not yet officially over. Indeed, there would still be a few steps left before making everything official and seeing the factories resume normal operations. The final agreement must first go through a vote and be signed. Once these steps are completed, the strike will end at Ford factories, and production can return to normal.
To get to this point, Ford decided to offer a 25 percent wage increase spread over the next four years, with an immediate 11 percent increase for returning UAW employees to work. Additionally, entry-level salaries will increase by 68%, while those at higher levels will increase by 33%. The manufacturer’s current temporary employees will benefit from a 150% increase.
In the announcement late Wednesday, union president Shawn Fain called the agreement historic.
No agreement with the other two manufacturers
As of this writing, GM and Stellantis have still not announced that they have reached an agreement in principle with the UAW. The two most recent locations to join the other walkout sites are the Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, which produces the Ram 1500, and the GM plant in Arlington, Texas, where the Chevrolet Tahoe is manufactured. and Suburban, GMC Yukon and Yukon XL and Cadillac Escalade.
According to the media Reuters, discussions between the union and GM as well as Stellantis were actively taking place this Thursday. The agreement reached on Ford’s side will inevitably have put pressure on the last two manufacturers at the negotiating table.
On our side of the border, this strike will affect us on the vehicle supply side. In fact, the arrival of vehicles currently on order will certainly be postponed by a few weeks. Manufacturers are therefore counting on a resumption of operations very soon on the sites currently at a standstill in order to allow production to restart.
