Workers see faults in American Axle-GM deal

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King wouldn’t say if he favored the pact, but said it was the best deal that UAW bargainers could get from a company that could move jobs elsewhere.

King also said an additional $18 million contribution from GM was the key to reaching the deal late Friday. The automaker already had agreed to kick in $200 million to help end the walkout and threw in the extra $18 million to cover supplemental unemployment benefits that American Axle was unwilling to pay, King said.

American Axle makes axles, drive shafts and stabilizer bars mainly for GM’s pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles, and GM said it lost $800 million in the first quarter due to the strike.

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A summary of the contract distributed by the union included base pay of $18.50 per hour for Detroit workers, up from the $17 per hour that American Axle had been offering.

The summary also said there will be buyouts of $85,000 for someone with less than 10 years with the company and $140,000 for a worker with more.

An offer of a $55,000 early retirement bonus also was included in the proposed contract.

Workers also would get a wage “buydown” of up to $105,000 paid over three years to help ease the transition to lower hourly pay. The size of the buydown would vary with the size of a worker’s pay reduction.

The deal features different pay rates at each of the company’s U.S. locations. Production workers in Detroit, for example, would make a maximum of $18.50 per hour, but workers doing some of the same jobs in Three Rivers, Mich., would make $14.50. Factory support workers in Detroit would make $14.35, while the same job would pay $10 per hour at the Three Rivers axle plant.

The summary sheet says American Axle agreed to invest $170 million to $200 million in UAW-represented factories, and the company agreed to place some new business in the plants. In addition, notices of outsourcing work from Detroit and Cheektowaga, N.Y., will be rescinded, the summary says.

And the union said it was able to hold off a company plan for up to a $4,000 health insurance deductible for a family. The new deductible is $300, the summary says.

Most workers leaving the meeting Sunday predicted the vote will be close. One worker tossed pages of the summary into the air as he walked out.

“There will be a lot of unhappy people,” Reed said as he carried a picket sign outside the school. “But I think it’s going to be accepted.”

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