Mack Trucks employees reject labor contract

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has informed Greensboro, North Carolina-based Mack Trucks its members voted against ratification of a previously negotiated new five-year collective bargaining agreement covering some 3,900 employees at Mack facilities in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida.

Subsequently, says Mack Trucks, which is part of the Sweden-based Volvo Group, UAW members will strike at the three covered facilities beginning Monday.

“We are surprised and disappointed that the UAW has chosen to strike, which we feel is unnecessary,” Mack President Stephen Roy says. “We clearly demonstrated our commitment to good faith bargaining by arriving at a tentative agreement that was endorsed by both the International UAW and the UAW Mack Truck Council.”

In a report from Reuters, the UAW as says in a letter on the matter, “As you are aware, UAW members and workers across the economy are mobilizing to demand their fair share. The union remains committed to exploring all options for reaching an agreement, but clearly we are not there yet.”

That same letter indicated 73 percent of voting Mack workers opted to reject the deal, according to Reuters.

“The UAW called our tentative agreement ‘a record contract for the heavy truck industry,’ and we trust that other stakeholders also appreciate that our market, business, and competitive set are very different from those of the passenger car makers," Roy says.

“Mack Trucks is part of the only heavy-truck manufacturing group that assembles all of its trucks and engines for the North American market here in the United States, and continues to compete against products built in lower-cost countries. We have invested more than $435 million in our plants and logistics network over the last 10 years, and are now in the process of investing more than $1 billion in new Mack products.

“We are committed to the collective bargaining process, and remain confident that we will be able to arrive at an agreement that delivers competitive wages and benefits for our employees and their families, while safeguarding our future as a competitive company and stable long-term employer. We look forward to returning to negotiations as soon as possible.”

The tentative agreement had included what a 10 percent general wage increase in Year 1 for all employees, a compounded 20 percent increase to general wages over five years, and a guarantee of no increases in health insurance premiums through the term of the contract.