EAST PEORIA — Local 974 United Auto Workers “overwhelmingly ratified” the supplemental local agreement of a proposed six-year contract with Caterpillar Inc. in a Saturday vote, according to a message on uawcaterpillar.org.
According to the PJ Star, most UAW members across the United States voted in favor of the central agreement of a proposed contract with Caterpillar. Wage hikes and benefit packages, main tenets of the contract, will take effect for all 5,000 UAW members at 11 Caterpillar facilities in Illinois and Pennsylvania. The supplemental local agreement, however, was rejected by Local 974 55 percent to 45 percent due to some undisclosed provisions. Such agreements usually cover provisions such as seniority rules, overtime and the structure of member representation. A second vote was held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Local 974′s Union Hall in East Peoria.
UAW members have worked without a contract since the beginning of March. The wage increases included in the contract, which was unanimously approved by the UAW’s bargaining committee, aimed at closing the pay gap between laborers hired under a two-tier wage system in effect since 2005. For laborers hired after the two-tier wage system began, the contract includes a pair of 2-percent raises.
“We’ll have to work on that more in future negotiations,” Local 974 President Randy Smith said last week. “There’s some in the membership that thought 2 percent wasn’t enough.”
There will also be market-based pay increases over the life of the contract for all union members.
Laborers under certain pay grades hired since January 2005 will achieve pay parity with more senior members in the same grade by December 2020 if those market-based increases accumulate at the same rate as in the most recent contract. There will still be pay differences of up to $2.06 per hour in other grades. UAW membership as a whole will experience greater wage gains with these pay increases than with the previous contract.
The central agreement also features provisions for no strikes and no lockouts.
Specific vote percentages have not yet been made public.
By Tim Rosenberger
Journal Star reporter
