DETROIT — Both new and longtime autoworkers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles represented by the UAW union will receive wage increases under a new four-year contract if they vote to ratify it in the coming weeks, the Detroit Free Press has learned.
A new tentative agreement between the UAW and Fiat Chrysler would set a new wage range for entry-level workers of more than $17 an hour to more than $25 per hour over a period of several years, according to two sources briefed on the contract who could not be named because the details have yet to be shared with union members. The current wage for entry-level workers starts at $15.78 per hour and tops out at $19.28 over four years.
That means entry level workers who earn the top wage now would eventually see their hourly wage increase by about 30 percent.
The contract also would give workers hired before 2007 their first raise in 10 years, the people said. Those workers would receive raises in the first and third years of the four-year contract of somewhere between 75 and 84 cents per hour, or by nearly 3 percent.
A third key element of the proposed contract is a new approach to profit-sharing that would give entry-level workers larger profit-sharing payments than workers hired before 2007 if the automaker’s profits pass a certain threshold. The way that threshold is calculated is unclear.
The new contract also is likely to include a number of other signing bonuses and gains. The Free Press has not been able to learn and verify all of the “economic,” or wage and benefit terms of the agreement.
In 2011, Fiat Chrysler workers received $3,500 ratification bonuses as well as $500 annual performance and quality bonuses and $1,000 annual bonuses based the performance of individual plants.
Bloomberg News reported Wednesday night that the new contract would pay UAW members $3,000 bonuses if they ratify it. Bloomberg also said the raises that the automaker’s legacy workers receive would increase their average hourly pay to about $30, up from about $28 per hour now.
A spokesman for the UAW declined to comment, and a spokeswoman for Fiat Chrysler also declined to comment.
UAW President Dennis Williams, by delivering wage increases to both entry-level workers and workers hired before 2007, will be able to tell UAW members that he is delivering a contract that fulfills the main goals the union had when discussions began in July.
“The UAW set three goals when we started this process,” Williams said when the agreement was announced Tuesday. “One, we wanted to start giving a path to our membership – we wanted to reward the UAW members for their sacrifices over the past several years and finally, we wanted to find a way to deal with escalating costs of health care. We believe that we have met those goals, but ultimately our membership will make that decision.”
But Williams may still face an uphill battle to convince members to ratify the agreement in the coming weeks even with signing bonuses and raises that many outsiders will see as generous.
The UAW is planning to brief elected leaders from across the country on all of the details of the contract in the coming days. Those leaders will be given the task of explaining the merits of the agreement to rank-and-file workers who will vote on the contract.
The morale of Fiat Chrysler workers is arguably lower than the morale of Ford and General Motors workers. Williams, on Tuesday, suggested that the UAW will aim for a more lucrative contract for workers.
For years, Fiat Chrysler workers have received less money in profit sharing and bonuses than workers at Ford and GM. They are also upset about new work schedules that were introduced in 2012 that require workers to work longer hours over a four-day work week rather than five eight hour days.
The average UAW worker at FCA has received $9,000 in profit-sharing, before taxes, over the last four years, compared to $30,200 for their counterparts at Ford and $30,250 at GM.
In 2011, Fiat Chrysler workers received smaller signing bonuses. The workers received $3,500 bonuses compared with $5,000 at GM and $6,000 at Ford.
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