DETROIT – Chrysler may have bent the pattern, but it didn’t break the framework of the labor deal that the United Auto Workers reached with General Motors.
Now it’s up to Ford to adapt the basic four-year contract to its own needs and get it done without a damaging strike.
Newly private Chrysler came to a tentative agreement Wednesday with the UAW that basically mirrored GM’s contract, reached Sept. 26 after its own two-day strike and ratified this week.
Some notable exceptions: less-restrictive job guarantees than GM agreed to and a smaller contribution to a company- financed trust that will be controlled by the union to pay for retiree health care.
Terms of the deal were finalized after 34,000 Chrysler workers walked off the job in a strike that lasted just over six hours. The walkout gave the UAW leverage to save 2,300 jobs, according to people close to the situation.
“We like to do a little … adjustment depending on the company we’re at,” UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said Thursday. “But in this case, it’s basically a pattern agreement.”
Ford, which lost $12.6 billion in 2006, is expected to work within the pattern to cut costs and streamline operations. Ford chief executive Alan Mulally said Thursday that he expects the UAW talks to address the automaker’s needs.
“We look forward to continuing to work together to improve the quality and the competitiveness of Ford,” Mulally said.
As with GM and Chrysler, the UAW is likely to make preserving jobs a top priority in the Ford talks.
At Chrysler, the union won major job guarantees for its 45,000 members but not to the extent that GM had agreed to.
Other key aspects of the Chrysler deal, however, were essentially the same. Like GM, Chrysler said it would establish a union-run health care trust for its retirees and surviving spouses. But Chrysler may pay a smaller portion of its liability than GM did to create a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association.
Other portions of the Chrysler deal were similar to the GM contract, including the establishment of a lower wage scale for nonproduction workers and a moratorium on outsourcing some nonmanufacturing jobs.
By getting Chrysler to stick to the pattern, the UAW preserved an important element of its traditional bargaining power with Detroit’s Big Three, one labor expert said.
“There were rumored signs that Chrysler was going to break the pattern,” said David Reynolds, a labor professor at Wayne State University. “It’s very significant that it did not happen. It’s a sign of the union’s strength.”
