UAW deal with Daimler Truck ratified as union readies for Mercedes-Benz vote
UAW members at Daimler Truck have OK'd a new four-year contract with the company.
The union said in a news release Saturday that the vote in favor was 94.5% and will cover more than 7,000 workers who build Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built Buses in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. The union did not provide a breakdown of the total yes and no votes.
The agreement, reached late on April 26, averted a strike. The union said the agreement includes raises of more than 25% and the introduction of profit-sharing and cost-of-living adjustments as it ends a tiered wage system at the truck maker.
“The membership at Daimler Truck was fired up and unified. That energy fueled the bargaining team’s push for a record contract — and they made great gains on the issues our members said were most important to them,” UAW Region 8 Director Tim Smith said in a release.
UAW President Shawn Fain also weighed in.
“Daimler Truck workers just showed the world that southern workers have the power to stand up and win big in heavy truck and beyond. Knowing that Daimler had made record profits year after year from their hard work, members used every tool — including the potent threat of a strike — to win," Fain said in the release.
A news release from Daimler Truck said the agreements, referring to the fact that there is both a master agreement and local facility agreements, are effective immediately and run through March 3, 2028.
"We are very pleased to have reached agreements with our bargaining partner, the UAW," John O’Leary, president and CEO of Daimler Truck North America, said in the release. "The new agreementsdemonstrate the value we place on our employees as our most important resource. We lookforward with confidence to a future that allows us to focus on what we collectively do best —building trucks and buses and delivering parts for commercial vehicles that help our customerskeep the world moving."
The deal with the UAW and Daimler Truck comes about a week before Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama vote on unionization there and follows the UAW's recent successful union vote among Volkswagen workers in Tennessee. Daimler Truck spun off from Mercedes-Benz in 2021, and the agreement could provide a boost to the vote at Mercedes-Benz.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW members OK deal with Daimler Truck ahead of Mercedes-Benz vote
