UAW workers on edge as voting on a proposed Ford national contract goes down to the wire

Yes or no?
UAW members at the Dearborn Truck Plant debated the union's national contract with Ford on Friday as they finished voting ... and awaited late-night word on the whether the imperiled agreement had passed.
"It’s a close vote," Nick Kottalis, chairman of UAW Local 600's Dearborn Truck Plant unit, said Friday afternoon. "It's the last day of voting on a national contract and it's close, so naturally tensions are high."
Some UAW members heading home from work argued that the union's tentative agreement with the automaker is fair while other workers said it doesn't provide nearly enough money to make up for the concessions workers sacrificed over the past decade.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
UAW declares GM contract ratified
That stark divide among workers at Ford's pickup plant are similar to a nearly evenly divided national workforce that was on the brink of rejecting an agreement that provides wage increases, bonuses and more than $9 billion in U.S. plant investment commitments.
“I hope they turn it down. We gave up a lot of concessions (in prior contracts)…we are not getting anything back," Mary Finney, 43, said as she left work Friday at Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant. "The $1,500 profit-sharing? We would be getting that anyway.”
Finney, who has worked at Ford for 21 years, said she wants raises in each year of the contract.
The agreement includes 3% raises in the first and third years of the contact and 4% lump sum payments in the second and fourth years.
Finney said she also believes the UAW can get a better contract if workers reject the agreement, even though UAW leaders have warned workers that might not be possible.
“You don’t settle with the first contract you get," she said. "That’s why it's called negotiations.”
But Charles Harvey, 62, of Bloomfield Hills said coworkers have unrealistic expectations, and said the raises and lump sum payments for longtime workers are adequate.
“It is a pretty good contract. I hope it passes," said Harvey, who also has a son who works at Flat Rock Assembly Plant.
Harvey said he likes that the contract provides the same signing bonuses to entry-level and longtime workers, unlike an agreement ratified last month by workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
"I don't think a lot of younger workers understand how good they have it," he said.
As of Friday, 52% of the more than 34,000 workers who voted nationwide had voted against the contract., according to an unofficial tally provided to the Free Press. For ratification, a majority of Ford's 52,900 voting workers would need to vote in favor of the agreement.
Official results of the nationwide tally were not expected until late Friday night at the earliest.
UAW officials made it clear that the ratification of the entire agreement came down to about 8,000 workers represented by UAW Local 600 in Dearborn. UAW Local 600 represents about 4,300 workers at the Dearborn Truck plant and nearly 4,000 more at Dearborn Stamping, Dearborn Engine, Dearborn Diversified and some other facilities.
Some workers on social media and elsewhere have charged that UAW representatives are strong-arming workers to vote in favor.
Kottalis said that's not the case. "We are doing our best to educate the voters — those who have questions," he said.
While Kottalis and most other elected UAW Local 600 officials are urging a yes vote, there is fierce opposition in Dearborn and at other Ford plants.
Many workers say they the agreement doesn't restore concessions workers gave up in prior contracts, such as cost-of-living increases. And they say it doesn't move entry-level workers to wages that match longtime workers fast enough.
If the deal is ratified, entry-level workers hired after 2007 who are making between $15.78 and $19.28 per hour would see their wages raised immediately to $17 to $22.50 and then up to about $29 per hour over an eight-year period. Many would reach the top wage faster.
Art Schwartz, president of Labor and Economics Associates in Ann Arbor and a former GM labor negotiator, said this year's contract talks are "unlike any one I've seen in my life....usually you get a deal and it's done."
Contact Brent Snavely: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrentSnavely. Free Press staff writer Matt Dolan contributed to this report.