By Bill Raack, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – A strike by mechanics, body shop workers and service department employees at 61 St. Louis area auto dealerships has come to an end. Representatives of the dealers approved a three-year contract today that had been negotiated with the help of a federal mediator. Machinists and Teamsters unions had okayed the new pact earlier.
Spokesman for the Dealers group, Patrick Sanders, says most workers will be back on the job starting Monday - but not everyone, "There hasn't been any service available for the last eleven weeks and there's no backlog of vehicles to work on, so obviously until the service departments are fully re-started some people might not have work to return to at this point." The union, which represents about 1,300 machinists, had expected there to be some layoffs.