After 10 days of round-the-clock picketing, roughly 1,000 workers at Dauch Corporation's Three Rivers manufacturing plant are heading back inside. UAW Local 2093 members voted Monday to ratify a four-year contract, bringing a quick end to a short but highly visible strike that had idled the southwest Michigan facility.
According to Crain's Detroit, members approved the agreement in a late‑week vote, and union leaders swiftly moved to stand down picket lines and restart production. The ratification capped a tentative deal first announced June 10, followed by a weekend of review sessions and a ballot that sealed the outcome.
Deal Details: $30 By 2030, Big Bump For Long‑Timers
The new contract sets a path to a top wage of $30 an hour by 2030, includes an immediate $8‑an‑hour raise for long‑tenured workers who absorbed steep cuts in 2008, and adds ratification bonuses and a freeze on health‑care premiums for the full four years, according to WardsAuto. Bargaining chair Josh Jager and other local officers said the package also boosts vacation time and designates Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Veterans Day as paid holidays.
Supply Chain Pressure Eases
The Three Rivers operation supplies axles for General Motors' full‑size and mid‑size pickup trucks, which meant automakers were watching parts inventories closely as the strike dragged on. Reuters and local coverage noted that a longer disruption could have pinched the output of some of GM's most profitable vehicles. With the deal now ratified, analysts say the near‑term risk to GM assembly schedules has eased.
“After 10 days on strike, I am proud to announce that UAW Local 2093 has reached a tentative agreement,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in the union's original announcement, a line he repeated after members signed off on the deal, per UAW. Local leaders cast the outcome as long‑awaited payback for members who agreed to painful givebacks during the 2008 financial crisis.
The fight centered on those Great Recession-era concessions. Reporting has shown that top wages at the plant were close to $29 an hour in 2008 but had slid to around $22 before this latest bargaining round. Industry trade outlets say a freshly ratified deal at a major Tier‑1 supplier like Dauch could now serve as a benchmark for other auto supplier negotiations later this year.
With the votes counted, union officials said they will work with plant management on detailed return‑to‑work schedules and roll out of the new contract terms. Company representatives thanked negotiators on both sides and said they look forward to resuming full operations, ClickOnDetroit reported. Local union leaders, for their part, warned that the next test will be on the shop floor, where enforcing the freshly inked language could prove just as critical as winning it.
