Press Release

UAW Announces Ratification of 1996-1999 Collective Bargaining Agreement with GM

11/20/96

Yokich, Shoemaker Announce Ratification of 1996-1999 UAW-GM Agreement


DETROIT, Nov. 18 -- UAW President Stephen P. Yokich and
Vice President Richard Shoemaker, director of the UAW General Motors
Department, announced today that the new three-year agreement with
General Motors Corporation had been ratified by an 85
percent majority in voting by UAW-represented GM hourly and skilled
trades workers.

"Our members at General Motors are clearly pleased with the terms of
the new contract," Yokich and Shoemaker said.

"Achieving this new agreement was a total team effort, stretching from
the bargaining committee, which spent months hammering out the new
contract provisions, to the UAW-GM members who displayed solidarity
and discipline throughout these protracted negotiations," Yokich and
Shoemaker stated.

Among the significant gains in the new agreement are: new protections
for job security that will provide a guaranteed minimum employment of
95 percent of current covered jobs, strong incentives for insourcing
work and creating jobs, greater disincentives on outsourcing, as well
as important new access to data about sourcing and expanded
involvement in sourcing decisions.

The wages and incomes of active UAW-represented GM workers will be
substantially increased over the term of the agreement through an
up-front, lump-sum payment of $2,000, followed by three percent
general wage increases in the second and third years of the agreement,
and continued cost-of-living- allowance protection.

Including the impact on overtime, shift premiums, vacation
entitlement, holiday, and other miscellaneous pay, the combination of
a $2,000 lump-sum payment, two, three-percent wage increases, the
Independence Week Shutdown Pay and continued COLA protection will be
worth more than $13,900 to a typical UAW-GM assembler over the life of
the agreement.

The new agreement also includes substantial gains in basic pension
plan benefits and 30-and-Out early retirement benefits for workers who
retire over the course of the new agreement. The union also succeeded
in negotiating lump-sum payments for retired UAW-GM workers, with an
inflation protection feature, that will be payable in December 1997
and December 1998.

UAW members at GM will have, for the first time, tuition assistance
payments of up to $1,000 per year for dependent children who enroll in
college and other approved post-secondary education and training. In
addition, up to $1,000 in tuition assistance will also be provided to
retired UAW-GM members.

To honor the contributions and achievements of veterans, Veterans Day
will be a paid holiday in the third year of the agreement. In all, the
agreement provides a total of 48 paid holidays.

Skilled trades workers will receive a 30-cent hourly tool allowance
beginning in the second year of the agreement and GM has committed to
indenture at least 2,250 new apprentices during the term of the
agreement.

Health benefits will be enhanced and group insurance benefits will
also be improved. Gains were also made in a wide variety of other
areas including: health and safety, work-family programs, group legal
services and the UAW-GM Quality Network. A separate agreement covers
approximately 250 UAW-GM salaried employees.