UAW rank and file to begin voting on FCA tentative agreement Friday

Fox Business Briefs: Fiat Chrysler merging with Peugeot owner to create one of the world's largest auto makers by volume with a market value of $48 billion; Ford reaches tentative deal with the United Auto Workers Union to avoid a strike.

United Auto Workers leaders have voted to send a tentative contract agreement with Fiat-Chrysler to rank-and-file members for a ratification vote.

Members will vote on the four-year contract agreement -- which includes a total of $9 billion in investments, a $9,000 signing bonus, a promise not to close any factories for the next four years and a commitment to keep making vehicles at a plant in Belvidere, Illinois, according to a person briefed on the matter -- beginning on Friday.

"This pattern agreement lifts all current full-time employees to top pay in four years; provides parity on health care for all in-progression employees; provides a pathway to full-time status and eventually top pay for all temporary employees [and] prescription drug coverage for temporary employees," UAW Vice President and Director of the UAW-FCA Department Cindy Estrada said in a statement.

Estrada added that traditional members will receive a $9,000 signing bonus, and temporary members will receive a $3,500 signing bonus.

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(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

The agreement will also enhance "the profit-sharing formula" by 12.5 percent and create "over 7,900 jobs from over $9 billion in investment -- including $4.5 billion in newly announced projects."

If the deal is ratified, the UAW's negotiations with all of the big three automakers -- GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler -- will allow Fiat Chrysler to focus on its merger with French automaker Peugeot. GM settled Oct. 31 after a bitter 40-day strike that paralyzed the company’s U.S. factories, but Ford reached a deal quickly and settled in mid-November.

The UAW-FCA signing bonus is $2,000 less than GM's signing bonus, but it’s equal to the amount Ford paid its workers. Both GM and Ford gave workers a mix of pay raises and lump-sum payments, signing bonuses, an end to a two-tier pay scale for full-time workers and a clear path for temporary workers to go full-time.

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FOX Business' Evie Fordham contributed to this report.