DETROIT — Despite significant dissent among some of its workers, United Auto Workers members narrowly passed a four-year contract agreement with Chrysler LLC on Saturday, leaving Ford Motor Co. as the last automaker to negotiate with in this year’s round of contract talks.
Talks with Ford were proceeding Saturday, although union leadership wasn’t expected to attend and no agreement was expected during the weekend, a person briefed on the talks said. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private.
The union said 56 percent of production workers and 51 percent of skilled trades workers voted for the Chrysler pact. The percentages voting in favor were much higher among clerical workers and engineers represented by the union.
The contract covers about 45,000 active workers at Chrysler and more than 55,000 Chrysler retirees and 23,000 surviving spouses. It will expire on Sept. 14, 2011.
“Our members had to face some tough choices, and we had a solid, democratic debate about this contract,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a statement. “Now we’re going to come together as a union — and now it’s on the company to move ahead.”
Chrysler, which became a private company in August when it was bought by Cerberus Capital Management LLC, said the agreement will make the company more competitive.
The union and Chrysler reached agreement on Oct. 10 following a six-hour nationwide strike. Like the agreement ratified earlier by General Motors Corp. workers, the Chrysler contract establishes a union-run trust to cover retirees’ health care and allows the company to pay lower wages to about 11,000 noncore, nonassembly workers.
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