G.M. Workers Approve Contract and End U.A.W. Strike

NY TIMES

The longest nationwide strike against General Motors in half a century ended on Friday after a solid majority of the company’s union members delivered their support for the four-year contract hammered out by their leaders.

The United Auto Workers union emerged with substantial wage increases and succeeded in ending a two-tier wage structure that had been a particular irritant in its ranks. It also won commitments to new G.M. investments in United States factories, while accepting the permanent shutdown of three plants already idled.

After almost six weeks on picket lines, some of G.M.’s 49,000 union workers could be back on the job Saturday morning, though it may take days to get back to full production.

“We delivered a contract that recognizes our employees for the important contributions they make to the overall success of the company,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said in a statement.

The U.A.W. said 57 percent of the nearly 41,000 members voting had backed the contract proposal. Now it will turn its attention to the other big Detroit automakers, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler. The union usually seeks to reach similar terms in a process known as pattern bargaining.

Patrick Anderson, the chief executive of Anderson Economic Group, a research and consulting firm, said that G.M. lost an estimated $1.75 billion as a result of the strike. But the walkout inflicted a wider economic toll, particularly in the Upper Midwest and other areas dependent on the auto industry, causing layoffs at G.M. suppliers like Lear Corporation.

In total, striking G.M. employees and workers at the suppliers lost an estimated $988 million in wages, Mr. Anderson said. “It’s already affecting home repairs, vacations, savings for college, holiday shopping, restaurant purchases,” he said.

For G.M. workers, the contract will yield wage increases of 3 percent in the second and fourth years and 4 percent lump sum payments in the first and third years, similar to what the union obtained in 2015.