Highlights of GM-UAW tentative contract

Highlights of GM-UAW tentative contract

	Published : Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:38 By : Agencies Print this Story

(AP) - Highlights of the tentative contract between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers union, according to a summary released Friday by the UAW. The contract is subject to a vote of GM's 74,000 UAW-represented hourly workers, who are scheduled to finish voting by Oct. 10.

-- U.S. PLANTS: GM committed to building current or existing products at 16 of its 18 U.S. assembly plants. Plans for future products also are included. For example, GM's highly anticipated electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, was promised to a plant in Detroit in 2010.

-- RETIREE HEALTH CARE: GM would put $29.9 billion into a UAW-managed fund for retiree health care called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, which would start administering retirees' health benefits in 2010. GM also would pay $5.4 billion to cover retiree health costs between 2008 and 2010, and up to $1.6 billion in payments over 20 years if the VEBA's funding level is insufficient. Active workers will contribute a small amount of their cost of living increases to the VEBA.

-- PAY: The UAW said the average worker will get $13,056 in economic gains over the life of the four-year contract. Workers would get a $3,000 bonus once the contract is ratified, plus lump-sum payments of 3 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent of their wages for the last three years of the contract. Workers also would get a cost-of-living increase, but some of that would be eaten up by contributions to retirees' health care.

-- TEMPORARY WORKERS: GM would hire 3,000 temporary workers at the full-time wage rate.

-- NON-CORE WORKERS: New hires who are doing what are considered noncore functions, such as combining parts from suppliers to prepare them for the assembly line, managing parts and chemicals or driving finished vehicles, will make between $14 and $16.23 an hour, or about half the starting wage of $28.12 that assembly workers would make under the new contract. There are more than 16,000 people doing noncore work in U.S. plants right now, the UAW said in its summary. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said there would be a buyout plan to replace the noncore workers with new hires, but he said the details are still being worked out.

-- PENSIONS: Pension benefits will increase $2.65 per month for each year of credited service by the final year of the agreement. Retirees would have to pay slightly more for their health care starting in 2016.