Initial results of two days of voting by United Auto Workers union members at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' (FCA) US manufacturing facilities indicate the second attempt at agreeing a four-year contract will be passed, according to reports by the Detroit Free Press and the Wall Street Journal. The reports cite results posted on union websites, which still need to be verified. According to the Wall Street Journal report, the deal will be passed by a "wide margin", and workers at plants in Warren and Dundee, both in Michigan, and Belvidere, Illinois, have ratified the agreement. The Detroit News reports that workers at the Sterling Stamping and Toledo Machining plants have also approved the contract. About 40,000 union members are eligible to vote and are represented under the contract.
Significance: This is the second contract agreement being presented to union members for approval, after workers rejected the first version, largely over concerns about the pay disparity between new hires and those with seniority extending to before the 2009 bankruptcy. If the union members ratify the FCA contract, the UAW will be able to advance the negotiations with Ford and General Motors (GM), neither of which has provided details of expectations on their contracts. Although the contract agreed with the first of these three automakers has traditionally been used as a template for the other two contracts, the current differences in financial situation between FCA, GM, and Ford may result, in this round of negotiations, in contracts with greater differences than previously.
