UAW Local 892 scheduled a vote for members Thursday at the Faurecia auto parts plant in Saline, Michigan, on a tentative contract calling for significant hourly wage hikes and a $2,500 signing bonus.
Highlights of the agreement also call for retroactive pay for new wages as of June 1, vacation time rollover and no increase in workers' health care costs.
The pact also includes a full-time health and safety representative. The signing bonus would include a $1,500 payment upon ratification and $1,000 in the first full pay period of January.
The plant, which employs about 1,900 UAW members, supplies interior parts to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford Motor and Tesla.
According to contract highlights given to workers by the union Monday, hourly pay for operators with less than a year of experience would rise from $13 to $13.50 today to $20.25 by May 1, 2023. The local newspaper, the Saline Post, reported on the highlights on its website Monday.
Process technicians making $22 hourly would receive an immediate $1.25-an-hour raise and would be paid $24.75 by May 2023. Skilled-trades workers will see their hourly wage rise from $32 to $36.
Ratification vote
UAW Local 892 members are to vote on the contract from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.
The tentative deal between Faurecia and the union was reached Friday while workers picketed in front of the plant on Michigan Avenue during a nine-hour strike.
"It's a great contract for all of the membership. There are raises across the board for all employees. There's also language about forced overtime that will prevent the company from forcing workers to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day," UAW Local 892 President Larry Robinson told the Saline Post newspaper Monday.
A Faurecia spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.
The UAW international said it would decline comment until after its members receive the full details at the ratification meetings.
'Nice increases'
“They talk about this for months and suddenly somebody throws the gauntlet down and that’s what brings it to a crisis point,” said Daron Gifford, a partner and auto industry leader at consulting firm Plante Moran in suburban Detroit. “Suddenly everything comes to an agreement very quickly. Whether it’s good or bad that’s typically how negotiations seem to work.”
“It looks like, on the surface, some pretty nice increases for the workers,” he said. “We’ll see if the workers think so when they’re voting Thursday.”
The plant was originally built by Ford in 1966 and has undergone several ownership changes, most recently to Faurecia in 2012.
Faurecia, headquartered in Nanterre, France, ranks No. 9 on the Automotive News Europe list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide sales to automakers of $20.67 billion in 2018.
