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The United Auto Workers union has ratified a package of concessions designed to reduce General Motors Corp.’s labor costs, completing a key piece of the automaker’s massive restructuring effort.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said at a news conference Friday that 74 percent of GM’s 54,000 U.S. production and skilled-trade workers voted in favor of the deal, which took effect Friday afternoon.

Workers at GM’s Wentzville assembly plant OK’d the changes to the contract with a 59 percent approval rate, said Tom Brune, the sourcing representative for UAW Local 2250, which represents more than 1,700 hourly workers at the full-size van plant.

UAW leaders last week agreed to the revised contract that freezes wages, ends bonuses, eliminates noncompetitive work rules and ends the possibility of a strike until the next contract expires in 2015 payday loans. The UAW said the cuts would save GM $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion a year.

The agreement also gives a union-run retiree health care trust 17.5 percent ownership of a postbankruptcy protection GM, with a warrant to buy another 2.5 percent. The stock will come in exchange for part of the company’s $20 billion obligation to the trust.

Post-Dispatch reporter Angela Tablac contributed

to this report.

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