The Stellantis and Ford deals both passed by more comfortable 2-to-1 margins. The only Stellantis locals against, where most voted no, represent two Mopar parts depots slated to close and the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, one of the plants that started the UAW's strike Sept. 15.
The Stellantis pact included a few provisions not found in the other two contracts that may have helped it get ratified. The UAW won a 2027 reopening of the idled Belvidere Assembly plant in Illinois, allowing thousands of workers to potentially return home. It also got the company to extend a car lease program to hourly workers that previously was reserved for management.
The union said Stellantis more than doubled the value of its contract offer after the strike began, while Ford added half to its proposal.
At Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant in Michigan, home of the profitable F-150 pickup, 78 percent of workers supported the contract.
"The people that worked for Ford collectively thought this out and approved it because it made sense," Nick Kottalis, Dearborn Truck's building chairman, told Automotive News. "Those numbers show a vast appreciation for the work the UAW and Ford did."
Fain last week continued to tout the contracts as a victory that would help the union organize other auto makers to bolster its ranks.
In a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in Washington, D.C., Fain highlighted recent moves by Toyota, Hyundai and Honda to increase workers' pay in response to what the union negotiated with the Detroit 3.
"We're very proud of that," Fain said.
All three deals include 25 percent pay raises through April 2028. The contracts also restore cost-of-living adjustments that, combined with the raises, are expected to ultimately boost worker pay more than 30 percent.
The deals cut the time it takes to make top wages to three years from eight, eliminate lower tiers of pay for some workers, increase vacation time and boost retirement contributions. The union also negotiated some back pay for striking members.
UAW leaders have said there is more value in each year of the agreements than in the entirety of the last four-year contracts signed in 2019.
"In many respects the contracts are record in terms of the economic gains and what it did to promote equity across the work force in terms of pay," Masters said. "Even those that got relatively less on a percentage basis still got a significant increase compared to what they've gotten in previous contracts. While the gains may not have recouped all of the losses they suffered during 15 painful years of retrenchment in the industry, they were starting from a very low base and got as much as they could in this round of negotiations — more than people thought was attainable at the beginning."
Although organizing nonunion auto makers will be a challenge for Fain, Masters said the strategies employed in the 2023 contract talks will have long-lasting impacts for unions across the country.
"The UAW really set the tone in terms of labor-management relations and how unions approach negotiations," Masters said. "They're no longer on the defensive. ... They dominated the narrative and they changed the focus. It's now unions on the offensive."
Vince Bond Jr. and Lindsay VanHulle contributed to this report.