The United Auto Workers (UAW) has reached a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Company, ending its six-week strike.
On Wednesday, UAW President Shawn Fain and UAW Vice President Chuck Browning announced the agreement, which will secure auto workers massive wage hikes and a right to strike whenever Ford closes a plant.
More specifically, the deal authorizes base wage hikes of 25 percent through April 2028 and will raise top wages by more than 30 percent to more than $40 per hour.
Starting wages will be raised by 68 percent to more than $28 an hour. According to Fain and Browning, during the course of the four-year agreement, Ford’s lowest-paid employees will see pay increases of more than 150 percent.
“For months we’ve said that record profits mean record contracts. And UAW family, our Stand Up Strike has delivered. What started at three plants at midnight on September 15, has become a national movement,” Fain said in a video address. “We won things nobody thought possible. Since the strike began, Ford put 50% more on the table than when we walked out. This agreement sets us on a new path to make things right at Ford, at the Big Three, and across the auto industry. Together, we are turning the tide for the working class in this country.”
“Our union has united in a way we haven’t seen in years. From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, our members came together to tell the Big Three with one voice that record profits mean a record contract,” Browning said in the video. “Thanks to the power of our members on the picket line and the threat of more strikes to come, we have won the most lucrative agreement per member since Walter Reuther was president.”
The agreement comes just days after Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford called on the labor group to reach an agreement and end its strike.
“A strong manufacturing base is critical to our national security. Building things in America matters now more than ever, especially in these uncertain times. We cannot take that for granted,” the company said. “Ford is the strongest partner the UAW has ever known.”
