Ford Wage Deal Is at Risk of Failing

Samples wouldn’t say how numerous approximately 1,300 members who work at the plant voted – Local 2000 has about 1,500 members – but he said turnout was good.

The proposed labor agreement between United Auto Workers (UAW) and Ford is at risk of failing after two major plants Tuesday voted it down.

There are about 162 skilled trades workers at the plant, making up about 12 percent of the total blue-collar workforce.

Results here and at other large Ford plants in MI, OH and the Chicago area through Friday are considered crucial in whether the tentative deal is ratified or will send UAW and Ford executives back to the bargaining table.

The office also plans to promote German-style works councils to represent both hourly and salaried plant employees. The Ford contract is the richest of the three UAW contracts drawn up with Detroit auto makers this year, and offers a $10,000 in upfront signing and profit-sharing bonuses, $9 billion in new US investments and raises that will be phased in over time.

The automaker has enjoyed robust profits this year as sales of trucks and sport utility vehicles made in UAW factories have boomed. Dziczek said. “But that’s in a world where the UAW has more power now than it does and more members”.

“There are multiple paths to collective bargaining, and this is a step in the right direction”, Mike Cantrell, the president of UAW Local 42 in Chattanooga, said in a statement. While members voted to support a deal, formal ratification has been delayed because skilled trades workers voted against the contract, and the union said it is working to address that issue with GM negotiators.

“The irony of negotiations is when you go back to the table, everything’s off the table”, Settle said. “And they don’t understand the process, so we try to do the best we possibly can to educate them on the process”.

But workers like Mary Donovan Springowski, a team leader at an engine plant in Cleveland, are opposed to the contract, in part, because it includes all-new, lower pay rates for workers at three of Ford’s plants – Rawsonville, Sterling Axle and Woodhaven Stamping.

“We did give up a lot in previous contracts and the next contract, if Ford’s doing well, I think we’ll be able to get more of it back”, said Pruchnicki of Lorain.

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. Workers commenting on the Local 551 Facebook page urged colleagues not to “sell out” to management, who they say have not gone far enough to make workers whole for what they’ve given up over the last nine years. For example, it calls for an $8,000 signing bonus instead of $4,000 bonuses at Fiat Chrysler.