Ford workers in Kansas City reject UAW deal

The National Labor Relations Board has granted the United Auto Workers petition for a union vote for skilled trade workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee.

Samples said the closeness of the vote reflects a few workers believing the contract should have been more generous because of previous UAW concessions and because of Ford’s recent profits.

Most of the earliest voting Ford factories – including the smaller Chicago Heights body panel plant – had voted in favor of the deal last week.

But the NLRB excludes team members and leaders, specialists, technicians, plant clerical employees, office clerical employees, engineers, purchasing and inventory employees, temporary and casual employees, student employees in the apprenticeship program, all employees employed by contractors, employee leasing companies and/or temporary agencies, all professional employees, managers, guards and supervisors. The skilled trades are made of positions such as welders, and represents about who represent about 16 percent of the 52,600 worker force.

The eyes of autoworkers nationwide turned to Louisville on Tuesday as almost 9,000 Ford Motor Co. hourly employees were called to vote on the proposed four-year national contract. “Well, we’re in a different world now”.

The new, 4-year agreement would trigger wage increases for all Ford workers, as well as $10,000 profit sharing and signing bonuses. Those so-called second-tier workers previously topped out just above $19 an hour.

More than a dozen employees from the Louisville Assembly Plant and Kentucky Truck entering union halls on Fern Valley Road and Chamberlain Lane to cast ballots reflected skepticism about whether Ford had offered the best deal.

The UAW will need to keep the votes at least close at Local 600 as well as Local 551, which is linked to the Chicago Assembly Plant, for the contract to pass, said Kristin Dziczek, labor analyst with the Center for Automotive Research.

Similar sentiments caused Fiat Chrysler workers to reject the first contract the union negotiated in September and send their leaders back to the bargaining table. The union already has forged a deal with FCA, Fiat Chrysler.

The production workers have voted to ratify the tentative agreement.

But, Dziczek said, “They’re probably not going to get them back, whatever happens”. And the US isn’t the highest labor-cost region in North America. “The global reality weighs a little bit bigger now”.

Gary Casteel, the UAW’s secretary-treasurer and director of the union’s efforts to organize foreign-owned plants, said in a statement that he was “pleased to be part of the new partnership” with IG Metall in the United States. He also said the company would likely hire replacement workers to try to break the union.