Early GM contract vote shows widespread opposition to UAW sellout

According to reports on Friday, more than half of workers at UAW Local 163, which represents 1,400 workers at an engine plant in Romulus, Michigan, rejected the contract. Participation was relatively high, at nearly 80 percent. The report was extremely close, with the contract reportedly failing by only five votes.

Significantly, the Romulus plant received a “guarantee” for future production—the main feature being promoted by the UAW to convince workers to accept the contract. The union bureaucracy has used the fraudulent guarantees, which in fact do nothing to ensure job security, to pit workers at factories who have the guarantees against workers at factories that will be shut down.

At a smaller plant in Massena, New York, workers voted 172 to 137 to reject the contract, which includes plans to close that factory

Other locals reported close yes votes, including Local 594 in Pontiac, Michigan, where 41 percent of those voting opposed the contract. At Local 730 in Grand Rapids, 46 percent of production workers and 29 percent of skilled trades workers voted against the deal. Workers in Local 653, also in Pontiac, favored the contract by a larger margin, with 73 percent voting to approve it.