The executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. on Monday urged the United Auto Workers union to reach a settlement and end a strike that began more than a month ago.
“We need to come together to end this acrimonious round of talks,” Bill Ford said during a speech at the automaker’s Dearborn, Michigan, factory that produces F-150 pickups. The plant is near the automaker’s headquarters. “Let’s come together, reach an agreement and take the fight to the real competition.”
The union began a strike at some, but not all, operations of Ford, General Motors Co. and Stellantis in mid-September.
The Detroit-based UAW last week escalated its strike against Ford. About 8,700 union members at the company’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville walked off the job. The factory makes profitable Super Duty pickups (F-250 and larger) and other vehicles and is Ford’s largest plant.
Adding Kentucky Truck Plant to the list of plants affected by the strike “harms tens of thousands of employees right away,” Bill Ford said on Monday. “The supply chain is very fragile. We can stop this now.”
Bill Ford, 66, is among the fourth-generation of the family that founded the automaker. He was CEO from 2001 to 2006. Early in his Ford career, he became a member of the company’s labor bargaining committee in 1982.
“As the UAW strike against Ford continues, we’re at a crossroads,” he said. “This is about the future of the American automobile industry.”
During this round of labor talks, UAW president Shawn Fain has said the union wants higher pay, a return to traditional pensions and to recoup concessions granted when GM and the former Chrysler Corp., now part of Stellantis, went into bankruptcy in the 2000s. The union has been aggressive on social media. Fain himself wore an “Eat the Rich” T-shirt during one of his livestreams.
“The UAW leaders have called us the enemy in these negotiations,” Bill Ford said in his Monday speech. “But I will never consider our employees as enemies. This should not be Ford versus the UAW. It should be Ford and the UAW versus Toyota, Honda, Tesla, and all the Chinese companies that want to enter our home market. Toyota, Honda, Tesla and the others are loving this strike. They will win and all of us will lose.”
Ford, GM and Stellantis are relying on profits from large pickups and SUVs to finance their investment in new electric vehicles. The need for future investments is “not just a talking point,” Bill Ford said on Monday.
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