Striking United Auto Workers at Mack Trucks will vote again next week on the company’s last, best and final offer of a master contract, essentially unchanged from the deal workers rejected.
Other than terms specific to four local agreements reached during a new round of negotiations, Mack essentially told the union that the 20% compound wage increases offered over five years were as far as it was prepared to go in a new master agreement.
About 3,900 workers in Pennsylvania, Florida and Maryland rejected that offer by 73% in voting on Oct. 8. A second vote is expected on Nov. 15 and 16 depending on location.
Mack’s main assembly plant near Allentown, Pennsylvania, has been idle since the walkout began Oct. 9. Workers at five other Volvo Group facilities, including an engine plant in Hagerstown, Maryland, also are on strike. Mack is part of Volvo Group North America.
Strike has minimal impact on Volvo Trucks operations
Unlike a UAW strike at Mack four years ago, production at the Volvo Trucks North America (VTNA) plant in Dublin, Virginia, has largely been unaffected. VTNA took one day of strike-related downtime on Oct. 30.
The VTNA plant is covered under a separate six-year master agreement reached in 2021 following a five-week UAW strike.
“The tentative agreement employees will vote on includes the strong wage and benefit package the company offered at the master contract level and tentatively agreed to by the parties on Oct. 1, as well as a number of revised terms negotiated with the UAW on local agreements impacting LVO [Lehigh Valley Operations], Hagerstown, Baltimore and Jacksonville,” Mack said in a statement Wednesday.
Workers at Mack’s medium-duty truck plant in Roanoke, Virginia, are not represented by a union.
Mack says Oct. 1 offer is last, best and final
In a statement on its website, the UAW called for the revote after the company said the Oct. 1 agreement was its last, best and final offer. That deal was endorsed by local and international UAW leadership as a “record contract” for the heavy truck industry.
Mack has taken a hard line since the tentative agreement was rejected. It called new economic demands by the UAW unreasonable and said the union was turning its back on months of negotiations that led to the deal.
Tentative UAW deals with the Detroit Three automakers may have helped bring the Mack-UAW talks to a head. Autoworkers will get a compound 25% increase over 4 ½ years, signing bonuses and other gains.
At a Nov. 2 rally, union leaders at Mack said their demand for restoration of annual cost of living adjustments (COLA) mirrored those included in the automaker agreements.
The UAW gave up COLA in 2009 during the Great Recession to help General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, then part of Fiat, survive. The 2009 COLA formula is part of the master agreements being voted on by the UAW’s 146,000 autoworkers.
It is unclear how Mack will proceed if the UAW rejects the master agreement a second time. UAW-represented workers at VTNA turned down three tentative agreements in 2021 before the company imposed the terms of its last offer.
Related articles:
Analysis: How costly is Mack Trucks’ stridency with striking UAW?
Mack Trucks fires back at striking UAW’s new demands
Mack Trucks and striking UAW resume talks Thursday
Click for more FreightWaves articles by Alan Adler.
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