With the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis hitting the one month mark, both sides have certainly made progress toward a new contract, yet remain far apart on a couple of key issues. As a result, the UAW decided to expand its strike against The Blue Oval earlier this week by walking out of the Kentucky Truck plant – which builds the the Ford Super Duty, Ford Expedition, and Lincoln Navigator following a meeting in which the automaker reportedly informed the union that it had reached the limit of what it could offer – financially speaking – which has since been confirmed by a prominent executive.
“We have been very clear that we are at the limit,” Kumar Galhotra, head of Ford Blue, said during a conference call Thursday afternoon. “We stretched to get to this point. Going further will hurt our ability to invest in the business.”
This isn’t the first time Ford has made it clear that it has boundaries when it comes to how much it can offer the UAW in a new contract, as CEO Jim Farley previously said that the union’s original demands would quite literally “bankrupt” the company. It’s unclear what the union’s most recent asks are in regards to pay and other benefits, but as Ford Authority reported earlier this week, two main sticking points remain – increased retirement security and the inclusion of future joint-venture EV battery plants in the UAW’s master contracts with the automakers.
In the meantime, Ford just outlined the ripple effects of the strike at the Kentucky Truck plant, which is affecting a total of 13 additional facilities. The automaker has also laid off a total of 1,920 workers as a result of the ongoing strike thus far, with more seemingly possible to follow the longer this work stoppage continues, particularly if it spreads to include additional plants.
We’ll have more on the UAW strike soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford-UAW news, UAW news, and 24/7 Ford news coverage.
Comments
The Feds are mandating a transition to EV which require a huge investiments. Why not mandate the UAW make multiillion million investiment in ev plants.
Or price current EVs to what they should be for their future investment? Instead of jacking up prices on ICE vehicles and taxing us more to cover them?
Why dont the worthless POS feds let the market decide if evs should be made or not? Funny how the auto industry was booming before Biden came into office.
Not funny at all, Tigger. This green new deal crap is gonna do serious damage to your average citizen and idiots like Biden could care less. Can you blame Biden for the strike? I think so, the millions spent developing these evs could have allowed for a nice raise to UAW members but still, how does Ford justify the upper management getting their 40% raise?
So are they just gonna close? No UAW deal means no production. That means nothing to sell except the imported stuff.
I don’t think “we are done offering more money” is really an option?
At some point, closing is the only option when the market can’t support the prices you want for your product because the cost to make and sell it is too high for your buyers. The only other option is to carry huge losses for years and hope to make it back WAY in the future. Or you know, a govt/taxpayer bailout if you are too big to fail.
It just feels.like there’s a LOT of other places that Ford could make cuts to make the numbers work. Even beyond the “executives make too much money” stuff, things like wasting more money on failed ev markets, donations to political or activist groups, stupid patents, or wining and dining journalists.
Reality is Ford is wasting way more money on the wrong EV path than the union is requesting.
I see so much waste in the plants and ford knows about it and just continues to do it!!! When Alan Mullally stepped in I saw a complete transformation in waste and the way things were done to cut cost and we started doing well and he left and after that they went right back to the old ways of just wasting millions of dollars a year!!! A lot of it they could spend 2 extra cent on a piece of plastic or a bolt and they don’t or it takes them years before they do but they waste a ton of money they could use to pay us
That is what happened to Hostess (Twinkies) during the strike with the Bakers Union. They ultimately shut down only to be bought out later by another company which moved production out of the US.
Proof that a company is never too big to fail.
At this point the Big 3, and especially Ford, need to evaluate shutting down completly and enter into the union busting phase of organized business. Take the upcoming holidays as a three month vacation for all and then let’s get together sometime in January and see how willing Fain ( as in Vain) is willing to listen to a long term offer that makes sense for UAW job security.
Ford made a seventh offer that the UAW refuses to acknowledge ; Ford should add an addendum to that offer by saying the following: This is our final offer to your members (UAW).
We will give you ( the UWA Management) seven business days to put this offer to your UAW members for their ratification. If there is no acceptance of this offer after seven days , we will do the following; We will add our total losses , for those seven days and subtract that from money and benefits from our current offer to make up for or losses. This scenario will continue every seven days
Ultimately if no ratification is agreed to by the UWA, there will be an impasse and the members will have no jobs to go back to. Ford will have to hire and train new workers. Ford will have to work out the details of this approach thru their Lawyers and Human Resource Department.
I realize this is very aggressive approach but Ford is dealing with a Union that will not work in collaborative approach to resolve the issues in a realistic way.
I hope that Ford Management considers this as a viable option in their negotiations with the UAW.
You are an idiot. There is plenty of money to be had. 40% raises to upper management, prices of ice vehicles stupidly high, millions on evs. You really are an idiot.
One of the dumbest comments I have read today!!!! Ford waste more money in a day then we are asking for how about they start following there own processes and procedures to build a quality car instead of bypassing them when they want to and wasting money throwing headliners, trim parts and all kinds of other parts they just scrap and get a new one and put on!!! If I had the money they wasted in one day it would probably cover what were asking for!!!!!
Funny all the big union members don’t take a pay cut during shut down but regular uaw members do thought this was we all stick togeather union members must remember some 90 percent or more who buy ford are noninion