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Posted: 2023-10-30T21:32:40Z | Updated: 2023-10-30T21:32:40Z

The United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract for 48,000 General Motors workers on Monday, bringing a potential end to the unions roughly six-week strike against the Big Three automakers.

The union said it had achieved a core demand in talks with GM: putting battery plant employees under the UAW national agreement, which would guarantee that those workers would bargain collectively amid the industry shift toward electric vehicles.

The UAW called it a historic tentative agreement in a statement, saying it paves the way for a just transition and wins record economic gains for autoworkers.

The union reached similar tentative deals with Ford and Jeep parent company Stellantis in recent days, with GM being the last holdout. Now that three tentative agreements are in place, the union has called all workers back to the job for the time being.

Employees will have the final say on whether to accept each of the deals, however. The union and its local affiliates will spend the coming days breaking down the finer details for members, then hold separate ratification votes for the trio of contracts.

GM did not immediately comment on the unions announcement.

The union said the contract paves the way for a just transition" as the industry shifts toward electric vehicles.

Like the deals at Ford and Stellantis, the GM agreement includes a minimum base pay increase of 25% over the course of the four-year contract, along with cost-of-living provisions that are likely to boost that raise higher. The union said the lowest-paid employees would see their wages hiked to at least $30 per hour by the end of the contract.

GM retirees and surviving spouses would also receive payments totaling $2,500 under the contract. The union said these would be the first such payments GM had made since 2008. The contract would also cut down the amount of time it takes new workers to reach the top pay rate from seven years to three years and assure workers the right to go on strike in protest of plant closures.

The union said workers at the Tennessee and Ohio factories run by Ultium Cells, a joint battery venture between GM and LG Energy Solutions, would be subject to the same contract. The automakers have generally said they would not extend the contract to battery plants in which outside companies like LG have a stake.

But UAW President Shawn Fain said earlier this month that the union had received such an offer in writing from GM. The union has argued that its crucial to include battery plants in the collective bargaining process to make sure the pivot to electric vehicles is not a race to the bottom with low wages.

Weve been told for months that this is impossible, Fain said. Weve been told the [electric vehicle] future must be a race to the bottom. And now weve called their bluff.

The tentative deals may bring to a close the first strike the UAW ever waged against all three of the Detroit automakers at once, a work stoppage that has collectively cost the companies billions of dollars in lost production.