Just yesterday, we reported that Ford Motor Company has decided to built two future EV crossovers – one Ford and one Lincoln, codenamed CDX746 and CDX747, respectively – alongside the Ford Mustang Mach-E at the Ford Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico. Though this was the original plan, the automaker has changed its mind a few times over the last couple of years, most recently targeting the Ford Ohio Assembly Plant for the new EV production. Now, the latest switch has attracted the ire of the United Autoworkers Union (UAW).
The head of the UAW-Ford department, Gerald Kariem, sent a letter to workers at the Ohio plant accusing Ford of “corporate greed,” saying the automaker had promised to produce a new product at the plant before the current labor contract ends in 2023.
“Unfortunately, Ford Motor Co. has decided it will not honor its promise to add a new product to OHAP and, instead, it intends to build the next-generation vehicle in Mexico,” Kariem wrote in the letter. “Ford management expects us to just hang our heads and accept the decision. But let me be clear, we are making a different choice. We 100 percent reject the company’s decision to put corporate greed and more potential projects over American jobs and the future of our members. We expect the company to honor its contractual commitments to this membership and when it fails to do so we will take action.”
Ford’s current contract with the UAW states that the automaker will invest $900 million in the Ohio plant and build a “next-generation product” beginning in 2023. Following the contract ramification in 2019, Ford shifted its EV production plans from the Ford Flat Rock Assembly Plant to the Ohio facility before deciding to move production of both EVs to Mexico.
“Ford Motor Co. believes in the Ohio Assembly Plant workforce, our state, and local government officials, and the communities of Avon Lake, Sheffield Lake, and Sheffield Village,” Plant Manager Jason Moore said in a letter. “The company has affirmed that commitment with the investment and additional full-time positions referenced previously. I firmly believe that this, coupled with our history of successful new product launches, has put us in a position to provide a significant advantage to the company’s competitiveness in the Commercial Vehicle segment.”
We’ll have more on this labor spat as soon as it’s available, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.
Comments
Well this is what happens when we elect a POTUS who is determined to chase jobs away.
Besides, the masses don’t seem to care where their stuff is built anyway.
Hail the anti-American so-called president the dopes put in. Obama was bad. This one is a disaster for the USA.
Just stop. Trump made his hats in China where at least Biden made his hats in the US. Not very pro-America is it? And at least Biden doesn’t suck up to dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un.
I can’t disagree with them. As long as any U.S. factory sits idle and Ford workers are unemployed, I will not purchase a vehicle made in Mexico or elsewhere.
This letter from the UAW strikes me as more of short-term angst than anything else. I’m not sure that this has as much to do with currently-unemployed U.S. workers at Ford as it does with future EV vehicle production and wanting to ensure that it happens in the U.S. It makes a lot of sense that a plant in Mexico optimized for EV production and capable of far more than the 50,000 Mach Es currently being built there would host the production for additional EVs in the short-term. In the longer-term, as ICE production declines and EVs ramp up, Ford will be retooling U.S. plants for EVs.
The only thing any union ever has had to do to remain perpetually employed is yield equivalent value which they can’t even manage with the benefit of geography.
Likewise! NAFTA should have been abandoned, not renegotiated.
Rich stuff coming from the union whose members pensions were bailed out even before GM and Chrysler so they could continue their comfortable retirements despite being the primary reason makers couldn’t build vehicles at home on a cost or quality competitive basis.
UAW cuts nose off to spite face once again. Buckle up kids and hold on to your ass.
Open Borders reciprocates as migrants go north so lawns can be mowed, good paying jobs go south.
These stupid unions had a President trying to keep jobs here and bring jobs back to the U.S. But with unions blind obedience to democrats, they’ve put in place our current brain dead President. Well this is what you get. I’d love to see these vehicles made in America, but it’s hard to feel sorry for these UAW members when they have ridiculous work rules, bloated wages, health benefits and pension provisions , in their contracts.
A new plant in Guatemala with “relaxed” child labor laws will cure the border and our new goofball government problems. This Union voted for our destruction thru— GREED and Government handouts> Never have I supported moving jobs to Mexico till now– But with the new ” learn to CODE ” NO PROBLEM !!!
I swear even Subaru and Toyota is sometimes even more American than the Detroit brands. I mean who puts profit over people. That’s pretty low.
The real problem isn’t management but rather an overvalued dollar that makes American exports uncompetitive globally. Another problem is VAT rebates which Mexico has but the US does not. A strong dollar makes Mexican cars cheaper despite tariffs.