DETROIT: The United Auto Workers union significantly escalated its walkout against Detroit’s Three automakers, shutting down Ford’s largest factory and threatening Jeep maker Stellantis.
In a surprise move Wednesday night, 8,700 members left their jobs at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant in Louisville.
And Thursday morning, union President Shawn Fain hinted at further action against Stellantis. “Here’s to hoping talks at Stellantis today are more productive than Ford yesterday,” Fain wrote on X, formerly Twitter, without saying what might happen.
Ford’s truck plant makes heavy-duty F-Series pickup trucks and large Ford and Lincoln SUVs, hitting the company’s most lucrative products. The vehicles made at the plant generate $25 billion per year in revenue, the company said in a statement.
Fain said in a statement that the union has waited long enough “but Ford hasn’t gotten the message” to bargain for a fair contract. “If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it,” Fain said.
The strike came nearly four weeks after the union began its walkouts against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis on Sept. 15, with one assembly plant from each company.
The company, however, called the strike expansion “grossly irresponsible” and said it has made strong wage and benefit offers to the union. It said the move puts about a dozen other Ford facilities at risk, as well as parts supply plants that together employ over 100,000 people.
A Ford executive said the union called a meeting at the company’s Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters Wednesday afternoon where Fain asked if the company had another offer.
High-ranking Ford executives responded that they are working on possibly bringing electric vehicle battery plants into the UAW national contract, essentially making them unionized. But they didn’t have a significantly different economic offer, the executive said. Fain was told the company put a strong offer on the table, but there wasn’t a lot of room to increase it and keep it affordable for the business, the executive said.
Fain responded by saying, if that’s the company’s best offer, “You just lost Kentucky Truck Plant,” said the executive. The meeting only lasted about 15 minutes, he said.
In a video, Fain said the union moved because Ford didn’t change its offer. “We’ve been very patient working with the company on this,” he said. “They have not met expectations, they’re not even coming to the table on it.”
The escalation against Ford shows that Fain is trying to increase pressure on the company, said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University who follows labor issues.
But Ford and the other automakers have made concessions and raised wage offers, he said. The companies, he said, “may have reached their resistance points to varying degrees.” Executives, he said, have bottom line positions they can’t cross in terms of staying competitive with other automakers.
