Woo Hoo! UAW Announces Tentative Agreement With Ford

Nearly six weeks into its historic strike against the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers, the United Auto Workers late Wednesday announced a tentative contract deal with Ford that includes significant wage increases and cost-of-living adjustments that were scrapped during the 2008 financial crisis.

In a statement, the UAW's leadership said the gains achieved in the deal amount to four times what workers received in the 2019 contract that recently expired. Ford's original proposal for a new contract included wage increases of just 9% while the union demanded a 46% boost, pointing to the automakers' surging profits over the past decade.

The tentative deal calls for a 25% general wage increase over four years, including an 11% boost in the first year. The UAW said the top wage under the tentative agreement would rise to more than $40 an hour over the life of the contract and the starting wage would jump to over $28 an hour—a 68% increase—thanks to cost-of-living adjustments.

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