DETROIT—Nearly three weeks after workers soundly rejected a tentative agreement, voting at several Fiat Chrysler plants showed strong support Wednesday for a new contract that would enable entry-level hires to gain wage parity with veteran employees.
PRETORIA, South Africa—BMW’s assembly plant here is getting some of its power from cow manure. The company has agreed to a 10-year deal to buy as much as 4.4 megawatts of electricity from a biogas power station about 80 kilometers from the assembly plant. Surrounded by land where approximately 30,000 cattle graze, the power station runs off gas emitted by a fetid mixture of dung and organic waste.
DETROIT—The UAW will formally explore whether it should renegotiate a proposed contract with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles before making the bolder decision to move on to General Motors or Ford to reach a deal. Last week, UAW members rejected a tentative agreement reached in September.
KANSAS CITY, MO—Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers avoided a strike at the automaker’s assembly plant here, after coming to a tentative agreement on a local labor contract Oct. 2.
HAGERSTOWN, MD—Volvo Group North America has installed 5,000 solar panels at its power train assembly plant here. The company erected a canopy of solar panels above its parking lot to generate approximately 1.3 megawatts of electricity, enough power for 200 homes.
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Researchers at MIT have developed a 3D-printed robotic hand made out of silicone rubber that can lift and handle objects as delicate as an egg and as thin as a compact disc.
LEWES, DE—The worldwide market for welding robots is expected to grow 6.09 percent annually through 2019, according to a new forecast from Market Research Reports Inc.
CHICAGO—Boeing will open a plant in China in partnership with state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China. The new factory will focus on painting and assembling twin-engine 737 aircraft manufactured in the US. Chinese firms also agreed to buy 300 Boeing jets, in deals worth about $38 billion.
FAIRFIELD, CT—General Electric Co. will move production of large, gas-powered engines to Canada from Wisconsin, along with 350 jobs, to access export financing no longer available in the United States. In its latest salvo aimed at persuading Congress to renew the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s charter, which expired in June, GE will invest $265 million in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant at a Canadian location yet to be determined.
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