Calling it the most lucrative contract the United Auto Workers had won in decades, UAW President Shawn Fain praised Stellantis for substantial wage increases, enhanced job security for temporary workers and $5,000 bonus payments that will be issued after the new contract is ratified.
“Our goal is to come back to the table in 2028 a much stronger union, a much louder union and a much larger union,” Fain said Thursday evening during a Facebook livestream with union members. “Everything we won in this contract was intended to prepare us for the fight at the next contract.”
For now, the gains are substantial. Workers won a record-breaking 25% pay increase that “is more than all the wage increases our union won over the last 22 years.” Adding in cost-of-living increases the union won for salaried and temporary employees, by the end of the 4-1/2-year contract, workers will make 33% more than they do now.
The starting wage for production workers will increase 67% from $18.04 per hour to $30.21. Adding in cost-of-living increases, top wages will increase from $31.77 per hour to $42.24.
The lowest-paid temporary workers at Stellantis will see the largest pay gains. Hourly wages will increase from $15.78 per hour to more than $42. Once union members ratify the contract, thousands of temporary workers will be immediately converted to full-time. The remaining temporary workers will be converted upon nine months of employment.
All UAW members will receive a $5,000 ratification bonus.
Fain said Stellantis also agreed that current UAW members transferring into jobs at a new electric vehicle plant will bring their pay, benefits and seniority along with them.
“Wherever this industry goes, the UAW is going with it, and we’re bringing the standards we fought for to the EV transition,” Fain said. “That’s the future of this industry.”
In a first for the union, UAW members will have access to the same Stellantis car lease program it makes available to its managers. Union workers who have worked for Stellantis for two years will be given significant discounts on Stellantis vehicle leases that include unlimited mileage and new vehicles every year.
On Thursday, Fain reiterated what he has said multiple times over the course of the UAW strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis: that he will bring the union fight to non-unionized companies such as Toyota, which, just this week, announced it is awarding 9% raises to its workers.
“What the boss has always failed to remember is that the choice to fight for a better future belongs to the workers,” Fain said. “Toyota’s future won’t be determined in the boardrooms. It’ll be determined on the plant floor. It will be determined by working class families sitting around the kitchen table. And the same is true for these Big Three contracts.”
The details of the Stellantis contract come four days after the UAW announced the two sides had reached a tentative deal to end the nearly six-week-old strike. It also comes the same day that 81% of factory workers at a Ford assembly line in Michigan voted to approve the new contract they agreed to last week.
The Ford factory was among the first to be shut down by the UAW’s stand-up strike, after the union’s previous four-year contract expired in mid-September. The new Ford contract includes a 25% wage increase over 4-1/2 years, cost-of-living adjustments, annual bonuses to retirees and other benefits.
Votes among Ford’s unionized workers will continue until November 17. Dates for the votes among GM and Stellantis UAW workers are not clear.
About 46,000 of the UAW’s 146,000 members had been striking assembly plants and parts distribution centers across the country before the deals were reached. Stellantis said this week it lost $3.2 billion from the strike, while Ford said it lost $1.3 billion and GM lost $800 million.