UAW agrees not to strike until 2015

Bloomberg (as reported in Automotive News) has discovered that the UAW has agreed not to strike against Chrysler until September 2015, instead relying on binding arbitration. The contract finalized on April 29, 2009, will expire in September 2011; changes can be negotiated but any unresolved differences will be arbitrated. The contract cuts health care benefits, imposes stricter attendance rules, and combines job classes. Job classifications had, as an ongoing matter, been combined at individual factories as Chrysler modernized them and moved them to more flexible and empowered-group manufacturing processes.