Ford UAW workers voting on new contract today

“Volkswagen’s attempt to sidestep US law was a waste of employees’ time and energy, and a waste of government resources”, Casteel said in a statement. If the vote fails, the parties can begin re-negotiations or the union leadership could call for a national strike.

A woman named Sherry, who works in KTP’s paint department, said she’s a 21-year employee who deserves more.

Those who are rejecting the deal don’t believe the gains the UAW won make up for the givebacks they granted in earlier contracts to help keep the company alive, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After that warning, worker sentiment toward the deal changed and it was ratified by a 63 percent margin.

Settles said being at the bargaining table isn’t easy.

The UAW and Germany’s largest autoworker union will join forces to address worker representation at the USA plants of German manufacturers. Ford is expected to earn as much as $9.5 billion in profit this year.

The Fiat Chrysler contract set a pattern followed by GM and Ford, which essentially ends a two-tiered system that paid UAW members hired after 2007 less than those hired before that year.

What if workers reject the deal? .

UAW leaders on Wednesday took the unusual step of calling a news conference at a plant near Ford’s headquarters that is yet to vote, hoping to sway workers to support the agreement.

“I understand the feeling that if you’re not going to get it back at the top of the market, when will you get it back?”

Only two assembly plants have voted in favor of the agreement: Ohio Assembly, where 52 percent voted “yes”, and MI Assembly, where 81 percent were in favor.

While the Chicago plant’s status as a producer of full-size Explorer SUVs and Taurus sedans for the US market protects it from that threat, any decision to move the production of Focus compacts or other small cars overseas from other USA plants would further weaken the union, Dziczek said. It’s likely the deal’s passage or defeat will come down to the 8,200 workers represented by Local 600.

“If we thought there was another dollar on the table, we would have got it the first time”, Ricke said.

Its goals are to improve wages and working conditions among German automotive employers and to promote the German-style “works councils” to represent both hourly and salaried plant employees.

“If Ford pays more than everybody else, they would be at a disadvantage to the other companies”, Settles said. A few people think you just go open Door Number Two and see if something’s behind there. “That is not how real negotiations go”. What’s to say Ford would honor the final four years when the current contract expires in 2019, they said.