It sure looks that way. The Detroit Free Press reports—without any commentary whatsoever—that six out of eight locals who’ve voted have rejected the deal. This despite the usual specter of United Auto Workers’ voter fraud/intimidation issue (contract votes are not subject to independent monitoring). To wit: “Details of tally not available” and “Number of represented workers not available” and “51% of workers who voted were for the deal” and “according to that unit’s Web site.” Not to mention this nugget from the main news story: “Not all UAW locals that have completed voting have divulged precise tallies, and UAW officials in Detroit have declined to provide details.” Anyway, it looks like the proposed contract with Ford is failing fast. So . . . now what? As we’ve said before, the usual M.O. is for the UAW to go back to the bargaining table, get the required headline change (no no strike clause) and return with the same basic deal as before. In these post-GM C11 days, a strike at Ford seems completely beyond the realm of possibility. But if push comes to shove, expect Ford—lauded as the non-bailout queen—to send more production outside the country. Which they have done and will do, anyway.
In this economy, only the UAW would have to the balls to say, “Screw the golden eggs, we want goose for supper”…
Edit: and I mean UAW as a whole… the UAW Leaders wanted the members to accept the contract, according to yesterday’s story.
The real question is, does Ford have enough popularity among Americans to say no and start hiring new workers at @ $20/hour everything included?
If Ford wants their workers to make the same concessions that GM/Chrysler workers did…..then Ford should file for C11…just like GM/Chrysler did. It’s that simple.
To expect the same concessions…while telling everyone and their brother that you are NOT GM/Chrysler is just greed.
I believe it was Saint Alan that said, in response to Congress asking if he would take a pay cut:
“I’m fine where I’m at.”
I think HIS UAW workers should do the same.
Ford cannot hire non-union workers at this stage with violating the federal Wagner Act.
Ford can attempt to have the workers vote to decertify the UAW as their bargaining agent. That is about as likely to happen as Lee Iacocca buying a Toyota for his personal car.
If for some reason there is a strike, Ford can eventually “lock out” the union workers and hire the union ones.
Both attempts are likely to do considerable damage to the company – and its quality efforts – at a crucial time in its history.
I think that better option is for the UAW leaders and Ford management to huddle and formulate “Plan B” at this stage.
Looks like UAW workers are feeling empowered in these days of big government bailouts. You’d almost think they weren’t hurtling towards a brick wall at all.
I do not take pleasure in the suffering of others, but when they all lose their jobs because Ford has either gone out of business or moved production away, I sure won’t be feeling any sympathy either.
Looks like UAW workers are feeling empowered in these days of big government bailouts.
Aren’t we spectulating just a little of what’s going on inside Ford and the UAW? I love the fact that we always assume the evil Union guy is wringing his greedy little hands over sticking it to the greedy executives. I can’t imagine what they are haggling over, it could be over how many jobs Ford has sent South to Mexico already. I don’t know and neither do you.
Truth is many foreign car companies love having their manufacture base in the US for US production. Many states (Mississippi, South Carolina) bend over backwards with incentives, a superior road and rail network, and an educated working class. To further this argument, these States lean heavily on Fed money to make this happen. Guess govt bailouts is all in the eye of the beholder.
delorean23: +10
Hey Ford, if these union tools are giving you too much trouble, there is a virtual legion of well-trained auto-assemblers right around VW’s plant in Puebla, Mexico.
Just sayin’…
Strikes are a scorched-earth solution to what are often petty, inconsequential differences. Ford is wise to insist on less draconian methods of resolving issues.
This is not a dignity issue. It’s a curbing of what quickly slides into crippling costs and production disruption issue. If rank-and-file grasp that putting away the nuclear option is by far in their best interest they will react accordingly.
A “No-Strike” also cancels out one of the biggest draws of a non-union plant.
I dunno – maybe they’ve been misinformed, or maybe they’re still feeling as entitled as they’ve always been.
I can say this though, It looks like these folks are just as blind in their own way as the executives were/are.
And if the UAW could have accepted 15-20 years ago, that the system in place (wages, benefits and work rules) were not sustainable (they hire consulting firms, they knew exactly what was coming and decided to take as much as they could when they could, almost the opposite of the socialist ideals the union was formed on in the first place), that the world had changed and began making gradual changes, ($20 something an hour, a 401k with matching and decent healthcare until retirement is doing pretty good in the information/service age), the domestics would love to manufacture in the US as well and the UAW would have alot more due paying members.
OK…In keeping with TTAC policy, I am a retired
CAW GM Canada auto worker.
Since the thirties the in plant culture is based on, “do not trust anything mangement says”. The UAW/CAW today is now a massive faceless organization. Made up of highly paid officials, that do not have a whole lot in common,with the rank and file.
Is it any wonder that the brothers and sisters on the shop floor don’t trust either side?
Ford workers arn’t stupid,they watch the news,read the papers. Fords doing great,Ford didn’t hit the taxpayers for any cash. Ford sales ore improving,its in the news everyday. Right, even that garbage can liner CR says Ford has caught up with Toyota.
So then the high priced union dudes gather them all up at a hockey rink,and tell em “we got bite the bullet guys”….we gotta except what our brothers and sisters at GM and Chryslers did.
So the people on the floor say”the guys at the other two had a gun held to thier head” Yes we most certainly did,we used to be the one with our collective finger on the trigger. At GM we were told “eat this,or we liqudate GM Canada” …We choked it down.
Ford people are not seeing that sort of preasure applied….YET!
I’ll bet Mullaly at FORD will take a lesson from McNerney, Boeings CEO and will move to decert the UAW and if not move production to non-union factory or out of the country. Boeing has to choose a location for a second 787 manufacturing line and told the union (IAM) in Seattle that it will only be in Seattle with a 10 year no strike clause..Union said no way. Line location decision is due in next two weeks. In the meantime Boeing bought a large 787 supplier in Charleston, SC over the summer, the workers there DECERTIFIED the union, and Boeing filed permits to beging clearing lots of land Nov 1 to build a new building…Meanwhile, Seattles IAM refuses to budge..tick..tick..tick
UPDATE-Oct 27-Puget Sound-Talks broke off in Seattle last night, while the SC senate passed a 170 Million special appropriation to fund most of the start-up costs for a new manufacturing building in return for Boeing investing 750 Million and creating 3800 new jobs in the next 7 years
The Ford union boys are being disingenious.
Anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together (and with a tiny bit of math skills) could tell that Ford’s window of opportunity for survival is severely limited.
Dear UAW: It’s gotten well and truly beyond the 1930’s here.
In case it escaped your attention, unemployment is running in double digits; the auto company which was so wealthy 2 years ago that it could have purchased GM, Ford and Chrysler with pocket change cannot make a profit in North America and has said as much (referring to Toyota, of course); and NAFTA still exists which means that Ford can very easily stop and do a short calculation when determining which plants to run and which to cut.
“Let’s see, boys. We can pay UAW – who might strike and ruin us – $70 an hour all in, or guys in Mexico about 1/25th of that – what’ll it be?”
Ford workers arn’t stupid,they watch the news,read the papers. Fords doing great,Ford didn’t hit the taxpayers for any cash. Ford sales ore improving,its in the news everyday. Right, even that garbage can liner CR says Ford has caught up with Toyota.
So then the high priced union dudes gather them all up at a hockey rink,and tell em “we got bite the bullet guys”….we gotta except what our brothers and sisters at GM and Chryslers did.
So the people on the floor say”the guys at the other two had a gun held to their head” Yes we most certainly did,we used to be the one with our collective finger on the trigger. At GM we were told “eat this,or we liquidate GM Canada” …We choked it down.
Brilliantly said.
Ford is bleeding red ink every minute of every day, seven days a week. Ford absolutely requires a No Strikes for Ten Years clause to head off the horrible cost and disruption a strike involves. Strikes are a scorched-earth solution to what are often petty, inconsequential differences. Ford is wise to insist on less draconian methods of resolving issues.
Until and unless the rank-and-file union members grasp it is by far in their best interest to agree to put away the nuclear option, this will get worse, far worse before it gets better.
By the way, a “No-Strike” strips off one of the biggest draws of a non-union shop.
Since we’re talking about Ford, it would have been more appropriate to use a picture of a P-51 Mustang going down in flames instead of a Spitfire.
^ I was thinking perhaps a Tri-motor going down in flames, since it’s Ford, and it would symbolize the anitguity of the UAW nicely.
You’re right! The Tri-motor is even more fitting. BTW, the good ol’ Tri-Motor weighed less than an Expedition.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1065/1490451257_4c43b01b84.jpg
Since we’re talking about Ford, it would have been more appropriate to use a picture of a P-51 Mustang going down in flames instead of a Spitfire.
Hmmmm…seems to me the old adage goes, “I went down in flames like a Japanese Zero”. I think a relation to Toyota is appropo here as well.
Honestly, Ford is not doing that badly and though it seems like its holding on with all ten fingernails, I think time will tell. If Ford fails, it won’t be because they didn’t try heaving everything off the ship to help her float. I believe Ford has a good line up that is looking forward and will, in time, push back at Toyota for the top spot again. Of course, I’m partial to Fords.
However, this is also what they said about Zenith, when it was the last American television manufacturer.
It’s a lot safer to make unsustainably high demands, when you know uncle Obama will come around and bend non UAW workers in the rest of the country over, once your demands finally do suceed in destroying the company. Had GM and Chrysler been left to liquidate, the Ford workers making these demands would have had some actual downside to consider. Now, the only downside is for the rest of us.
skor said: “the good ol’ Tri-Motor weighed less than an Expedition.”
That right there is funny, I don’t care who you are!
Boeing just announced that the second 787 line will be in South Carolina. It was not the wages, benefits, or government handouts. It was the No-Strike labor situation they demanded. They were determined to get it one way or another.
They got it in South Carolina.
I’m tired of unions of all kinds. They are little more than syndicates that exist for the purpose of legalized extortion.
The UAW workers in Flint got what was coming to them. Ford should pull out and leave the union workers with nothing more than a tin cup to beg with.
I’m an educator and have to put up with the teachers’ union. They’ve run education into the ground in the U.S. You can tell from my tone that unions make me mad.
I was watching CNBC talk about the new 787 line in SC. They were talking about ‘innovation’ and ‘efficiency’ and ‘cost effectiveness.’ Even if they didn’t have ‘Charleston, SC’ scrolling on the bottom of the screen, it was pretty clear that they weren’t talking about, say, Michigan!
Ford should just sue the UAW for anti-trust violation. How would you like it if the people who work for you are also the same people who own your competitors?
I just love working in a pro-labor union state (Pennsylvania) watching all the new mfg plants being built elsewhere. And the unions say they are “protecting” the workers ? I’d rather have a $20/hr non-union job than no job at all.
Right to work = jobs
Ford is doing better then the other two, but even with their debt swap, is still drowning in a sea of debt. Doing better is not the same as doing well.
Aren’t we spectulating just a little of what’s going on inside Ford and the UAW?
No, “we” are not. Please re-read my post, this time focusing on the words which actually appear on the screen.
If you wish to argue that the workers are NOT feeling empowered in calling Ford’s bluff, by all means please do so. To me, however, it is a self-evident truth.
re: don1967: Oh, I see. So is there a particular phrase that I may have missed in your tirade? And if you reread what I wrote, you will see that I did argue your point, such as it was. And from your statement “to me, however, it is a self-evident truth” denotes opinion, not fact.