By Doug Cunningham

UAW GM workers will wrap up their voting on the new tentative contract by October 10th. So far, the new contract is winning approval as UAW locals vote around the country. One local that rejected the tentative contract, though, is New York Local 465. Workers there will see their plant close under the agreement. Workers at UAW Local 163 in Romulus, Michigan also rejected the deal, even though the contract promises future work for that plant. Locals representing at least 13,000 of the UAW’s 73,454 GM members have voted so far. The new contract spells out which plants will get future work. The new tentative deal with GM includes a union-managed health care trust fund that will take on all of GM’s future retiree health obligations in return a payment of roughly 70 percent of that liability. It will also let GM replace more than 16,000 current UAW members with much lower paid new hires. The UAW is currently in negotiations with Chrysler and once that contract is settled will sit down with Ford Motor Company.