United Auto Workers members at Mack Trucks will work 30 minutes more a day to help the company build more trucks. They would earn about $3,000 more a year before raises in a five-year master agreement they will vote on this Saturday.
The provision in the UAW Local 677 agreement would allow Mack’s 2,300 workers in Lower Macungie, Pennsylvania, to build at least 1,600 more trucks a year. The plant builds all of Mack’s Class 8 models, including a battery-electric version of the Mack LR refuse truck. Despite an $84 million overhaul completed in 2020, the 164-acre site is space-constrained.
The longer workday could help Mack’s Lehigh Valley Operations grow market share among heavy-duty truck OEMs. Mack delivered 7,960 trucks in the second quarter, 11% more than the 7,152 delivered in Q2 of 2022.
Its market share increased by one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.9% through May. That included medium-duty trucks built by nonunion workers in Roanoke, Virginia.
Mack is part of Volvo Group North America and a sibling of Volvo Truck North America.
‘Willingness to be creative’
“Our job security is dependent on our willingness to be creative in our joint partnership approach to address these concerns,” the 15-page highlight document posted on the Local 677 website said. “We will be working an 8½ hour paid day which includes a paid lunch. This will equate to an added approximately $3,000 per year.”
Voting on the local and master agreements covering about 3,900 UAW-represented workers is scheduled for Saturday afternoon in Bethlehem. Details of the master agreement, other than an increase in length to five years from four years, have not been released.
Watch now: Will UAW get to organize Mack’s Roanoke, Virginia plant?
The tentative master agreement reached minutes before the last four-year agreement expired on Sunday addresses wages, health care and other broad-stroke issues. Eleven tentative local agreements were reached ahead of the master pact.
Those agreements primarily cover issues pertaining to a specific facility. In the case of Mack’s assembly plant in Lower Macungie, the pay progression, or grow-in, over six years will increase by 10% a year from the contract reached following a 12-day strike in October 2019. Production technicians in their sixth year would receive a $9.17-per-hour raise.
Related articles:
Mack Trucks settles with UAW on longer agreement
UAW-represented Mack Trucks workers near strike deadline
Click for more FreightWaves articles by Alan Adler.
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