GE Aerospace workers represented by United Auto Workers Local 647 voted to ratify a new contract on Friday, ending a three-week strike at the engine supplier’s Cincinnati-area facilities, the company and union announced last week.
Union-represented GE Aerospace employees voted by 82% to approve the five-year contract, which is backdated to Sept. 15 and expires Sept. 15, 2030, per UAW’s news release.
The new agreement includes additional vacation time and GE Aerospace covering nearly all healthcare premium increases over the contract period. The offer also kept the union’s grievance and strike language and locked in job security protections for the Erlanger, Kentucky, and Evendale, Ohio, facilities, including minimum headcount and new work.
The UAW members at the Evendale plant focus on assembling operations for GE Aerospace’s aeroderivative engines, which are used for marine and industrial applications. The Erlanger facility is a parts distribution warehouse.
Workers returned to their usual schedules on Sunday evening and Monday morning, a GE Aerospace spokesperson said in a Sept. 19 email.
“For over three weeks, across Erlanger and Evendale, you never wavered,” UAW Region 2B Director Dave Green said in a statement. “Your grit, resilience — and, of course, your solidarity — showed a multi-billion dollar company what power really looks like.”
Christian Meisner, GE Aerospace’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement that the company is looking forward to its UAW-represented employees returning to work and resume operations.
The two parties began negotiations on July 31 but failed to reach a deal before the contract expired on Aug. 28, when over 600 GE Aerospace workers walked off the job.
Earlier this month, UAW filed an unfair labor practice complaint against GE Aerospace with the National Labor Relations Board. The union accused the company of allegedly bargaining “in bad faith, due to inconsistencies and false statements about bargaining,” according to a UAW Sept. 4 press release.
GE Aerospace said in a Sept. 1 statement that the Local 647 leaders allegedly rejected the company’s offer before allowing workers to vote on the proposal. The union said that there was no deal for the employees to vote on.
Striking workers temporarily increased up to about 1,200 GE Aerospace employees, according to the union’s press release. About 550 workers represented by IAM Local 912 at the Evendale facility held a sympathy strike from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8, Craig Norman, IAM Union collective bargaining director, said in an email. However, since the Machinists local ratified their own five-year contract with GE Aerospace in August, the company ordered IAM-represented workers to return to work or be disciplined.
While GE Aerospace and UAW have reached an agreement to end the workers' strike, the same cannot be said for the engine supplier’s customer, Boeing.
Boeing workers represented by the IAM District 837 at the company’s St. Louis-area fighter jet plants voted to ratify the union’s proposed strike settlement and submitted the offer to the company on Friday. However, the plane maker does not plan to accept IAM’s offer and instead, touted its recent offer, even comparing it to UAW and GE Aerospace’s ratified contract.
