Unionized workers at Daimler Truck, which makes Freightliner trucks, Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses in North Carolina, won significant raises and living allowances.
Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
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Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
Unionized workers at Daimler Truck, which makes Freightliner trucks, Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses in North Carolina, won significant raises and living allowances.
Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
The United Auto Workers union announced Friday evening that it had reached a favorable new contract agreement for 7,300 workers at Daimler Truck North America. The union had threatened to go on strike starting at midnight, when their last contract expired.
A large majority of union employees work at factories in North Carolina, where Daimler makes Freightliner and Western Star trucks as well as Thomas Built buses. Smaller numbers of workers work at parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis. The UAW was the first to unionize Daimler Truck workers beginning in the 1990s.
Like the Big Three auto workers who walked out last fall, Daimler workers have demanded significant raises, echoing the slogan from last year’s strike: “Record profits mean record contracts.” “.
The union said the new contract included raises of at least 25 percent over four years, as well as living allowances and profit sharing, the first for Daimler Truck workers since joining the UAW . These gains are similar to what the union achieved for workers at the Big Three last fall.
Union workers have yet to ratify the agreement.
Earlier Friday, Daimler Truck released a statement saying it was engaged in good faith negotiations with the UAW, working to reach new contracts that would benefit both parties and “enable Daimler Truck North America to continue to deliver the products that enable our customers to move the world forward.” “.
The culmination of negotiations comes just a week after the UAW scored a historic victory in another Southern state, winning a union election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was the union’s third attempt to organize the plant, following the first two. narrow defeats.
On May 13, workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, will begin voting on whether or not to join the UAW.
Formerly part of the same company, Daimler Truck split from Mercedes-Benz in 2021. Still, an outcome seen as favorable to North Carolina workers could give the UAW a boost not only in upcoming elections at Mercedes-Benz, but also in the current union campaigns. at Hyundai, Toyota and Honda, other foreign automobile factories in the South.
The UAW pledged earlier this year to spend $40 million on organizing efforts through 2026, with a focus on the South.
News Source : www.npr.org
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