A newly minted, first-time labor agreement at Electrolux’s Memphis kitchen appliance factory provides for raises and worker protections including a grievance and arbitration process.

The agreement comes less than a year after the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers won a vote to represent workers at the southwest Memphis plant.

Paul Shaffer, business manager for IBEW Local 474, said the contract represents a milestone for the plant and could encourage employees who are considering unionizing at other Memphis-area companies.

The tentative agreement was approved by a large margin on Saturday, capping about nine months of negotiation, Shaffer said. About 700 workers were eligible to vote at the plant, which has about 1,150 full-time and contract employees.

Electrolux spokeswoman Eloise Hale said, "Both parties bargained in good faith. Throughout the negotiations, our objectives were to maintain a competitive cost structure at the Memphis plant relative to the global appliance industry and to ensure productive operations.”

Shaffer said, “It’s a huge accomplishment to get the first contract signed in less than a year. We feel like it’s a huge accomplishment for organized labor, especially in the South.”

“A lot of the time, companies will try to drag their feet and drag it out a year or more” during initial contract negotiations, Shaffer continued. Delay tactics are usually rooted in a hope that employees will change their minds and vote the union out.

Shaffer said the contract doesn’t make a major change in pay scales but includes important provisions such as joint committees that give workers input on labor-management relations, safety and training. Workers start at $12.59 an hour and average pay is just under $16 an hour.

Employees already received a 3 percent raise earlier this year and would get percentage increases in the contract’s second and third years, Shaffer said.

“We feel like the committees are going to have a big impact on relations between employees and management at the plant,” Shaffer said.

Swedish-owned Electrolux moved the plant to Memphis from a unionized factory in Canada, drawn partly by incentives and lower labor costs. The project, announced in late 2010, lured more than $150 million in public incentives.