Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
The United Auto Workers Union announced late Friday that it has reached a lucrative new contract for 7,300 Daimler Trucks North American workers. The union threatened to start a strike at midnight when the last contract expires.
The majority of union employees work at Daimler's North Carolina plants where it makes Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Build buses. Atlanta and Memphis have fewer parts distribution center employees. The UAW was the first union to form at Daimler Truck starting in the 1990s.
Like the Big Three auto workers who left their jobs last fall, Daimler workers have been demanding significant wage increases, reviving the “record profits mean record contracts” slogan from last year's strike.
The union said the new contract includes wage increases of at least 25 percent over four years, as well as cost-of-living and profit-sharing costs, the first since Daimler truck workers joined the UAW. These gains are similar to those the union secured for Big Three workers last fall.
Union members still have to ratify the agreement.
On Friday morning, Daimler Trucks said in a statement that it is engaged in good faith negotiations with the UAW and is working toward a new contract that is beneficial to both parties and that “Daimler Trucks North America will continue to provide products that help our customers keep the world moving.” “We help you do that,” he said. .”
The culmination of the talks comes just a week after the UAW scored a significant victory in another Southern state, winning union elections at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was the union's third attempt to organize the plant. A narrow defeat.
Starting May 13, employees at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, will begin voting on whether to join the UAW.
Daimler Trucks, once part of the same company, split with Mercedes-Benz in 2021. Still, a result that appears to be favorable for workers in North Carolina could give the UAW a boost not only in the upcoming Mercedes-Benz election but also in the ongoing union movement. The same goes for other foreign automobile factories in Korea, such as Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda.
The UAW pledged earlier this year to spend $40 million on organizing activities through 2026, with a focus on the South.