Chrysler hourly workers to get $1,500 profit-sharing check

By Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press –

DETROIT — Chrysler’s hourly workers are set to receive profit-sharing checks that will average more than $1,500 per worker, the Detroit Free Press has learned.

Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne sent an email to workers Wednesday saying hourly and salaried workers will receive a performance award. The email didn’t say how much workers will receive.

For salaried employees, that award will be based on a performance plan. For hourly workers it will be based on profit-sharing formula ratified by UAW members last fall, according to a person familiar with Chrysler’s UAW contract.

The profit-sharing formula for Chrysler workers is based on the company’s modified operating profit in North America.

For 2011, Chrysler reported an operating profit of $1.97 billion. About 85 percent of Chrysler’s profits come from North America, according to a summary of Chrysler’s 2011 labor contract with the UAW.

According to profit-sharing formula distributed by the UAW last fall, that would mean that Chrysler’s 26,000 hourly workers would receive a pre-tax profit sharing check of more than $1,500.

“This is a reward that you have earned,” Marchionne told employees in the email Wednesday. “The more difficult the task, the more satisfying it is to overcome all obstacles. … Your efforts rewrote the history that so many naysayers had forecast.

Chrysler spokeswoman Shawn Morgan declined to comment on the amount of the awards for hourly or salaried workers.

The last time Chrysler workers received a profit-sharing check was in 2005, when workers received a check of about $650.