Kentucky Truck site employs 8,700 workers building Ford and Lincoln trucks and SUVs
https://www.carscoops.com/author/chris-chilton-cc/
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by Chris Chilton
5 hours ago
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The UAW’s four-week-old strike campaign just got a whole lot more serious. Still unsatisfied with the offers Ford is bringing to the table, the UAW decided to hit the company where it hurts by organizing a walkout at the Blue Oval’s biggest plant.
Around 8,700 workers are employed at Ford’s Kentucky Truck factory building Ford Super Duty Pickups and Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs, which makes this the biggest walkout in this current wave of strike action. In total, around 34,000 workers represented by the UAW are now engaged in strike action at Ford, GM and Stellantis sites, according to Auto News. That equates to almost to almost 25 percent of the Big Three’s workers.
“We have been crystal clear, and we have waited long enough, but Ford has not gotten the message,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “It’s time for a fair contract at Ford and the rest of the Big Three. If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it.”
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Related: GM CEO Unloads On UAW, Says Union Planned “Long, Unnecessary Strike” From The Start
Talks between the two sides had had reportedly been progressing this week, but the walkout was triggered on Wednesday night after Ford failed to provide the full counteroffer the UAW and Fain had requested. On hearing the news from Ford execs that they weren’t ready to meet the UAW’s demands, Fain stood up and told then: “You just lost Kentucky Truck Plant.”
The plant is a crucial site for the automaker, and on-target to churn out 400,000 vehicles this year, Reuters reports, contributing around $25 billion to Ford’s revenue. But so far Ford has shown no sign of backing down, and warned that the union’s refusal to accept its recently improved offer threatens the safety of 100,000 jobs in production sites, supplier operations and dealerships.
The UAW also released a video (below) to highlight what it sees as vastly different treatment the Big Three takes when approaching pay packages for its management versus its workers. It claims that the average CEO pay across companies like Honda, Nissan, VW and Mercedes is $5 million, whereas Detroit chiefs pocket a whopping $25 million every year.
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