Ford/UAW Reach Tentative Agreement

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Looks to be very slightly better than the GM deal. I hope this wins ratification, I'm not convinced it will be an easy sale to the rank and file...time will tell.

Some of the terms...

"The agreement raises the hourly wage for workers hired after 2007 to $19.28 by the end of the contract. Those workers currently make about $15.50 an hour."

"Ford will also offer buyouts of $50,000 to production workers and $100,000 to skilled-trades workers, in an attempt to open jobs for more entry-level employees."

FLAT ROCK to get the FUSION ASSEMBLY...

"Under the agreement, Ford’s plant in Flat Rock will build the Ford Fusion and continue to build the Ford Mustang, one of the people said. That factory will receive a $500 million investment, providing some job security for its 1,600 hourly workers."

Kansas City and Avon Lake get new commitments as well...

"Ford also will invest $1 billion at a Kansas City assembly plant, which will build the Transit, Ford's full-size European van. A $128 million investment will be made in Avon Lake, Ohio, to build medium-duty trucks and motor-home chassis."

Ford-UAW Reach Tentative Agreement
 
They are moving the Fusion to the states????!!! Awesome!!!!

Wish they could put something in at St. Thomas....
 
Sounds like they will be once again pushing themselves out of the market. UAW needs to start thinking long term, because those salaries are unsustainable.

Last time I checked, we are still in a recession!
 
Yeah, I'm real glad to see them move production of the Fusion to the United States.

As far as the wages, if I were a line worker, I think I'd be happy with a guaranteed 20% raise over the next four years. Not much comes with a guarantee anymore.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Yeah, I'm real glad to see them move production of the Fusion to the United States.

As far as the wages, if I were a line worker, I think I'd be happy with a guaranteed 20% raise over the next four years. Not much comes with a guarantee anymore.


This article doesnt give much insite into the higher tier wage and what benefits they may be gaining. I suspect it will b e much like the GM agreement, mostly revolving around bonuses, job security and reinstated benefits...not wage increases.

The higher tier one wage earners will not be getting any 20% guaranteed raise over the life of this contract. And the higher tier one wage earners outnumber the tier two workers something like almost 10 to 1. Without knowing what the tier one guys gained it's hard to tell how the voting will go.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
They are moving the Fusion to the states????!!! Awesome!!!!

Wish they could put something in at St. Thomas....


Fantastic, isn't it?

Best news I've heard in a while...combined with Rawsonville, and their battery operations, Ford has a little insourcing trend going on here...LOVE IT!

Curious why there was no news about the Transit Connect and where it would be moving to once production moves here from Europe...maybe St Thomas will get some of that action? When do the next CAW negotiations take place?
 
I bet the boys at St. Thomas would be really happy to have the Transit Connect there. Not sure when the negotiations are.
 
A little more info here...details slowly leaking out...

Ford/UAW Tentative Details

Looks as if the Fusion move will be for the Lincoln MKZ and certain Fusion trim levels and/or for overflow production...some assembly will continue in Mexico. That makes sense as Flat Rock as it's currently set up and staffed would be hard pressed to produce those numbers alone. Although I have heard rumours another whole shift may be added at Flat Rock.
 
And they people wonder why cars are mostly manufactured over seas, then slopped together over here, because the unions always demand higher wages so they can't afford to pay them 20 dollars an hour to fabricate everything..
 
Ford and GM cars and trucks are NOT mostly "manufactured overseas"...where do people get this non sensical garbage from?

If you understood the economics of the car business and the extreme amount of value added by the line workers, you would understand a $20 per hour tier two wage is entirely sustainable. Heck, if Ford and GM had a workforce that was ALL Tier two $20/hr wages, they would have a license to print money! As it is only a small fraction of their workforce earns that lower wage.
 
Originally Posted By: FirstNissan
Sounds like they will be once again pushing themselves out of the market. UAW needs to start thinking long term, because those salaries are unsustainable.

Last time I checked, we are still in a recession!


$19.28 is really not a whole lot of money if you have a family, maybe if you are single and on your own. But $19.28 is a fair wage for UAW folks.
 
If $20/hr in the US is too much money to assemble cars on a production line then man what should all the less productive jobs be paying?
 
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
If $20/hr in the US is too much money to assemble cars on a production line then man what should all the less productive jobs be paying?


$12/day remember? That's what we are aspiring to. And lengthen that work day to 16hrs of course. Oh, and you work 7 days a week.

And you live at your employer.

Nuts isn't it?

$20/hr is more than fair. That is $40K a year before taxes. There is nothing unreasonable about that at all.
 
New tid bits...they keep updating the linked Detroit News article. Looks like the added second shift at Flat Rock is official according to UAW spokesman, it will be added in 2013...

"The Ford deal prevents layoffs at the Flat Rock plant that were to result from Ford-Mazda Motor Corp.'s decision to move production of the Mazda6 to Japan.

With the addition of the Fusion, the Flat Rock factory will build another 175,000 to 200,000 vehicles there a year, enough for a second shift, which will be added in 2013, Settles said. The Fusion will be built along side the Ford Mustang.

The gap will be filled with production of the Lincoln MKZ or some trim levels of the Ford Fusion midsize sedan, according to people close to the negotiations."
 
There shouldnt be much tooling necessary to adapt the Fusion to the Flat Rock assembly line. The Fusion and the Mazda 6 are mechanically almost identical.

$20 an hour seems more than fair for that part of the country and that type of work.
 
Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
Ford and GM cars and trucks are NOT mostly "manufactured overseas"...where do people get this non sensical garbage from?

Though what you say may be true, I know for a fact that Ford requires their suppliers to manufacture parts in "low wage" places. Notice that Ford doesn't explicitly tell suppliers to manufacture offshore, but the implication is hard to interpret any other way, BUT to send manufacturing offshore.
 
It's not "may" be true...it is an absolute truth. To state it as the person I replied to did is a typical misrepresentation of the facts. The key word in both our statements as I'm sure you are aware is "mostly"..he had it backwards, I corrected him.

Of course I concede your point....some percentage of almost any car built anywhere has some parts or sub assemblies sourced off shore...the percentages are clear and delineated for every one to examine...and the majority of parts/sub assemblies and final assembly of GM and Ford vehicles for NA consumption are USA/Canadian in content.

Also, I'm a little surprised Kestas, I know you know the industry. You and I both know that "low wage" places can mean Alabama or some other right to work state to many around Detroit, it doesn't have to mean "offshore" at all...imo. Although I would agree, often it does.
 
Makes good sense for Ford to move Fusion production to Flat Rock...it's sister the Mazda6 has been assembled there for a while now and now that Mazda will be pulling production from that factory in a year or two they can probably get away without making too many modifications to existing infrastructure in the plant.
 
I think the foreign transplants are the originators and masters at using low pay, temporary workers in America. And is there any wonder as a result there's less jobs and tight economics? Low income earners don't do much to stimulate the economy. But let's blame the UAW and the domestics for everything. Worrying about what someone else is earning will get one every where, right. I'm still trying to figure out if $19 hours is more than generous for mass production work, then what about low production work?
 
While Im glad that they got a contract, it seems ridiculous to me to up the wage to $19.28 from $15.50. Why?

It is arbitrary. It is not tied to a CPI, sales, performance, etc. IMO the raises, if anything non-performance based, should be based upon the CPI increase that GSA states for each locality. Why again? Because most folks in most professions have not gotten raises, and being union shouldnt just automatically guarantee it to you.

Im all for people getting a reasonable raise when the company/business is making money. But I think it should be tied to something, and given that the federal government, most private employees, etc. havent gotten raises, I just can't see why this should be guaranteed for these union laborers.
 
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