Only two weeks ago, leaders of the United Auto Workers union and Fiat Chrysler praised each other for clear communication across the bargaining table.
"You don’t have to be adversarial. You just have to be honest. I think that’s what we learned," UAW President Dennis Williams said, as Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne looked on. Williams added, “We are ultimately in this together.”
Unfortunately, that feeling was not shared by UAW members.
On Wednesday night, it became clear that the UAW's tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler had gone down to defeat. Workers at many of the company's major assembly and parts plants voted against the four-year contract.
They were not upset over what was in the contract, but what they thought the contract was supposed to contain, and did not.
Namely, UAW members were looking for assurance that Fiat Chrysler would limit the number of workers that would earn lower wages than veteran workers.
They thought they'd gotten such a promise in the past two contracts, approved in 2007 and 2011, and assumed it would be in the new agreement, too. They based that assumption on the brochure describing the contract details, which was distributed to the workforce after each deal was reached.
But it turned out that cap on lower-paid workers, who are called "two-tiers," referring to the different wage rates, was never in the formal language of any of those agreements, nor was it in the new one.
On Thursday, the UAW meets with leaders from Fiat Chrysler local unions to mull their next move. They have three options: go back to the bargaining table, extend the contract and move on to General Motors or Ford, or strike.
Given the tone of the negotiations only two weeks ago, it might seem unlikely that the UAW would walk out at Fiat Chrysler. And, the most logical thing would simply be to resume talks and amend the existing agreement.
Butthe UAW's Williams now needs to show his workers that he has heard them, and that the UAW's loyalties remain with the rank-and-file, not with managers on the other side of the table.
He will have to demand the cap, or provide sufficient proof why he couldn't get it.
Although Fiat Chrysler is willing to narrow the wage gap, Marchionne may not be willing to limit the number of two-tier workers to 25 percent of its workforce, the figure that many workers say they thought was already in the contract.
About 45 percent of Fiat Chrysler workers earn lower wages, and that's a key reason why the company has been able to hire thousands of employees since it emerged from a federally directed bankruptcy in 2009.
It's clearly a lesson for Williams, who negotiated his first national agreement since becoming UAW president in 2014.
There has not been a national agreement rejected by UAW members at a major automaker since 1982, when Chrysler workers turned down profit sharing payment in lieu of raises. They had given $2 an hour in concessions to help Chrysler attain federal loan guarantees in the late 1970s, and they wanted their money back.
It's interesting that the UAW made the same mistake twice in describing the two-tier cap, and nobody actually caught it until eight years after the error was originally made.
But, UAW members clearly are paying attention to details, and now their leaders must, too.
