GM, UAW reach tentative deal to avert strike

But for tens of thousands of autoworkers, the future is a little less foreboding than in recent years past. The workers were not penalized with the recall cost that company suffered due to its ignition switch issue, as the automaker made a decision to ignore the profit sharing formula in the UAW contract in February. The UAW hasn't yet reached a tentative agreement with Ford. The agreement was on a latest national agreement that covered around 52,000 employees.

Today, GM and its Detroit rivals are flourishing amid the strongest US auto sales in more than a decade and buyers' appetite for lucrative trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Since then, automakers have recovered, fueling rank-and-file clamor to scrap the wage gap. After settling with Fiat Chrysler, which has smaller earnings than GM and Ford, the union aimed for more lucrative contracts with those larger and more profitable companies.

"I think that would be awesome". Under the new deal, they will make roughly $29 an hour after eight years.

The UAW and General Motors agreed to a new, tentative labor agreement Sunday night about 15 minutes before a strike deadline. Fiat Chrysler sweetened the deal after workers rejected the first proposed contract.

Though the details of the proposed contract weren't immediately available, UAW President Dennis Williams gave a general statement about a few of the benefits the deal would confer, saying it will provide "long-term, significant wage gains and job security benefits now and in the future", reported the Associated Press.

The UAW calls its new four year deal with GM "transformative" reports WWJ AutoBeat Reporter Jeff Gilbert. The company has regained is footing and now is posting healthy profits.

GM recently posted a record $3.1 billion pretax operating profit for the third quarter, with $8.3 billion in pretax revenues in North America.

Lower-level talks at Ford will continue until a contract is ratified with GM. GM expressed a similar sentiment about its contract talks.

"We can have the absolute best agreement in the world", Mr. Johnson said. In that agreement the UAW was successful in it's goal to eliminate the hated two-tier wage system.

"No one wants to see a strike", said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California Berkeley and an expert in labor matters.

The American ruling class has used this fundamental attack on the social position of autoworkers, once the highest paid industrial workers in the United States, if not the world, to drive down the wages and conditions of all workers.