NEWSLETTER
The United Automobile Workers’ monthlong strike and the union’s demands for substantial wage and benefit increases risk damaging the U.S. auto industry, hurting its ability to compete against non-union foreign rivals, the chief executive of the United Automobile Workers said Monday. Ford Motor.
The fight should not be seen as the UAW’s fight against Ford, or its cross-town rivals General Motors and Stellantis, said William C. Ford Jr., great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, noting that at times UAW officials UAW have referred to automakers as the “enemy” of the union.
“It should be Ford and the UAW against Toyota, Honda, Tesla and all the Chinese companies that want to get into our local market,” Ford said at the company’s Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
“Toyota, Honda, Tesla and the others love the strike, because they know that the longer it lasts, the better it will be for them,” the CEO said. “They will win and we will all lose.”
Mr. Ford’s comments alluded to a period several decades ago when the UAW won increasingly rich contracts that many industry experts later felt had hindered the three Michigan automakers in the face of competition from the Japanese and European car manufacturers. Ford was on the brink of collapse and GM and Chrysler (now part of Stellantis) had to seek bankruptcy protection after the 2008 financial crisis.
“Ford’s ability to invest in the future is not just a talking point,” Mr. Ford said. “He is the absolute soul of our company. And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. “Many jobs will be lost.”
In a statement, UAW President Shawn Fain said Ford should “stop playing around” and comply with the union’s demands, or “we will shut down the Rouge for him.” Fain added that the UAW was not fighting the company but rather “corporate greed.”
“If Ford wants to be an all-American auto company, it can pay all-American wages and benefits,” Fain said. “Workers at Tesla, Toyota, Honda and others are not the enemy: they are the UAW members of the future.”
Ford, GM and Stellantis have been negotiating new labor contracts with the UAW since July. Over the past month, the union called on workers at some plants to go on strike. The action has paralyzed three Ford plants, two GM plants and one Stellantis plant. Workers at 38 GM and Stellantis parts warehouses are also on strike.
The strategy aims to increase pressure on companies to meet union demands for significantly higher wages, shorter working hours and expanded pensions, and end a system that pays new employees just over half of the UAW’s maximum wage of $32 an hour.
The companies have offered wage increases of more than 20 percent over the next four years and some other measures in line with the union’s demands, but the UAW is pushing for greater concessions.
Last week, the union called a strike of 8,700 workers at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant in Louisville, the company’s largest.
Ford executives said last week that the company had made a record offer to the union and that improving the deal would hurt the automaker’s ability to invest in electric vehicles and other new models and technologies.
Ford, which has participated in every round of negotiations with the UAW since 1982, said talks had reached “a crossroads” and warned that labor contracts that saddled automakers with high costs could hurt the U.S. economy.
“The price of failure should be clear to everyone,” he said. “Let’s come together and reach an agreement, so we can take the fight to real competition.”
