April 29 (UPI) — President Joe Biden is celebrating the United Auto Workers and Daimler Truck for reaching a tentative agreement to avoid a strike of some 7,300 workers
The UAW and Daimler reached the agreement late Friday just before the expiration of their contract.
“I applaud the UAW and Daimler for reaching a tentative agreement for a record contract. The UAW workers at Daimler are building the trucks and school buses of the future right here in America,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.
“This agreement is a testament to the power of collective bargaining and shows that we can build a clean energy economy with strong, middle-class union jobs.”
Th agreement reached Friday is a four-year extension that will see workers receive a minimum 25% wage increase across the life of the contract.
It also ends wage tiers and introduces profit-sharing and cost-of-living increases while increasing job security and implementing guarantees on a minimum number of vehicles to be built at each plant, among other changes.
“Tonight, it’s clear the company and the world heard your message: We build the product. We make the profits. We deserve a deal that reflects our hard work,” UAW President Shawn Fain said Friday night in his announcement of the deal.
“We win more when we stick together.”
Daimler Truck is a commercial manufacturer of buses and trucks, with more than 100,000 employees at 40 locations in North America, Europe, Asia and latin America, according to its website.
Negotiations began about three weeks ago, and the agreement was reached about a week after workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga factory in Tennessee overwhelmingly voted to join the UAW.
UAW endorsed Biden for re-election in January.
