Workers at Mobis North America were on strike for their first full day on Wednesday, halting production of the Jeep Gladiator at the Toledo Assembly Complex just as the plant was recovering from its last labor shutdown.
But by late Wednesday, United Auto Workers leaders announced that the company and union had a tentative deal.
“We got an agreement tonight,” Bruce Baumhower, president of Local 12, said.
Members are being asked to return for the afternoon shift Thursday.
A ratification vote on the tentative 4½-year pact will be scheduled soon. Details were not disclosed, but he said agreement on economics led to the deal.
“It’s a good company,” Mr. Baumhower said. “We’ve had a wonderful relationship with them since they came to Toledo.”
Hours after Mobis employees went on strike, Local 12 Stellantis members voted no in a ratification vote on the contract agreement with the company, election committee vice-chairman Nikki Hardiman confirmed.
“We just didn’t like the contract,” Ms. Hardiman said, noting that general pay, the employee attendance policy, and the tiered-wage system in the present agreement remained sticking points.
According to unofficial results, Local 12 Stellantis members voted the agreement down 54.9-45.1 percent but overall results as of Wednesday evening showed more than two-thirds of the members of the 25 Stellantis locals around the country that were reporting results were in favor of the agreement.
About 400 Mobis workers build chassis for the mid-sized Gladiator pickup alongside their Stellantis colleagues at the North Toledo facility on Stickney Avenue. The employees are part of an unusual supplier park arrangement at the plant — part of the same assembly lines as their Jeep-employed colleagues but working under a different company and separate UAW labor contract.
The Mobis strike had come just over two weeks after a six-week UAW Stellantis strike shut down both the Gladiator and Wrangler sides of the Jeep plant and forced the layoff of the Mobis workers.
Mobis North America is a subsidiary of Hyundai.
UAW Region 2B, which oversees workers in Ohio and Michigan, confirmed the Mobis strike was under way in a social media post early Wednesday morning. By midafternoon on Wednesday, a large group of strikers were positioned outside two of the plant’s entrances on Stickney, working in six-hour shifts.
“We’re the heart of the Gladiator,” said one worker, Chris Stokes, 41, a 14-year Mobis employee. Yet he said Mobis workers have been “left behind” compared to their Jeep colleagues in the plant.
The Mobis pay scale is lower, workers noted, starting out at $16 per hour and rising to about $27. They don’t receive the same hefty profit-sharing checks that Stellantis workers do. And they also tend to work more hectic hours, sometimes forced to stay late because of Stellantis production demands even though they work for a different company.
The lower wage tiers are “the big thing we’re making a push for,” said Albert Richardson, 41, who has worked 15 years at the plant. “Why are we a tier two? We build 60 percent of that car, there’s no reason in the free world we should be a tier two."
Dave Green, Region 2B director, previously noted that the Mobis workers “do the same work” as their Stellantis colleagues in the plant and so deserve a substantially similar contract.
The Stellantis deal includes 25 percent wage increases over the 4½-year contract, faster progression to top wages, cost-of-living pay adjustments that further boost the raises, and more.
Mobis workers said Wednesday the lack of a profit-sharing check or similar bonuses that the Jeep workers receive has been especially aggravating. The profit-sharing checks can be hefty: Last year they topped $14,000 per qualifying Stellantis worker.
Mobis workers said when those checks go out, all they receive is a pizza party or similar catered meal. They said they receive a $350 Christmas bonus. The Mobis workers are represented by UAW Local 12 in Toledo just like the other Jeep workers.
Mobis workers said the Detroit Three strikes provided the momentum they needed to also win a strong contract.
“If we didn’t ride the wave right now from what the Big Three just did, we’d still be in trouble,” said Nolan Hych, 53, a 15-year Mobis worker.
“There’s no losing for us,” he added. “We are in the driver’s seat.”
First Published November 15, 2023, 1:15 p.m.
