Posted on 02/17/2024 10:06:33 AM PST by CFW
Ford CEO Jim Farley suggested the company may have to rethink its “manufacturing footprint” in the United States after last year’s conflict with a worker’s union.
Speaking at the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York on Thursday, Mr. Farley said that Ford always took pride in its relationship with United Auto Workers (UAW), according to the Associated Press. Since the 1970s, the company has not experienced any strikes involving the union. However, this relationship changed last year when Ford’s Louisville factory in Kentucky was shut down by the UAW. As the company seeks to transition to electric vehicles from internal combustion engine ones, “we have to think carefully about our (manufacturing) footprint.” UAW’s six-week strike last year forced Ford to negotiate higher wages for workers. Higher-level employees were able to secure a 33 percent wage hike running through 2028 that pushes their hourly wages to around $42. Ford also agreed to eliminate “divisive” wage tiers and reinstate cost-of-living adjustments. “I want to be clear: We told Ford to pony up, and they did … We won things nobody thought was possible,” UAW president Shawn Fain said at the time. The new arrangement offered more raises to workers than the past 22 years combined, the union stated.
Mr. Farley said that Ford could cut down manufacturing costs this year to offset the cost of the new contract signed with UAW workers. The contracts would also add $900 in costs to a vehicle.
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Unions are like ismalic jihadists: No one enjoys a cordial relationship with either.
in 2016, Trump warned Ford that if they moved jobs to Mexico, he would increase duty for their products into the USA to 35%
I assume he would make the same threat in 2024.
Unions outlived their purpose long ago. Now they just destroy companies. They pushed steel production out of the US forever. Crushed the auto industry.
Actually, Ford needs to rethink it’s move from the combustion engine to EVs which are worthless & way too expensive on top of their reliability issues which are numerous.
If Ford keep going the way they are, they won’t have to worry about manufacturing vehicles anywhere.
Ford should be concerned. The CONSUMER ALWAYS WINS when the Free Market operates in the self interest and voluntary cooperation between buyers and sellers without government interference.
If the U.S. is not the most beneficial place for Ford to manufacture, then Ford should go where it’s benefits are maximized. Low-cost and effective industry means low-priced and quality goods for the consumer.
Ford should move production to Canada and Mexico, then drop all EV production.
People wonder why a vehicle’s value drops about 33% the moment you take delivery. If you drove it around the block and brought it back and the dealership bought it back, the most you’d get is in the neighborhood of about 67%. That’s because they’d buy it back at the vehicle’s actual value. The rest is called legacy costs. That’s all the medical benefits and bennies that are paid to the manufacturer’s workers. This is why some foreign made vehicles have higher content per dollar of cost than American made vehicles. Those countries have socialized medicine or, they’re more concerned with “equity” and don’t allow highly compensated jobs like American companies do.
Incidentally, I read a glowing article about how equal Canadian workers were on their financial equity metric. The same article lamented that young workers were fleeing to America just to make more money when, obviously, Canada was the superior worker’s paradise. The irony was so thick I was amazed no one pointed it out to the author.
Worker legacy costs are helping to kill what’s left of American industry, as you noted. But that’s not the whole picture. Executive greed is also playing a part. Ford CEO Jim Farley made $22,000,000 in 2022. That’s in one year. And it wasn’t even a very good year for Ford.
The executives are killing the golden goose. So it’s understandable (although stupid) for the workers to want to do the same.
They also crushed the Construction equipment industry - Hyundai - Komatsu and Liu Gong have taken over the equipment industry - No unions involved.
That is a comically childish post.
Nowhere on Earth, ever, is there a free market economic system.
It exists in textbooks only.
The idea you’re fine with Gook slaves taking our jobs, because muh Capitalism is country destroying stupid.
Every country invokes some protectionist measures.
Under Trump you actually saw a slow and small shift of manufacturing jobs returning to the US.
Of course all that was wiped out in no time when Biden came in.
What people need to realize is that the middle class was created by the blue collar manufacturing job. There is a reason why in the US you have seen more rich and more poor over the years as these jobs began to go overseas. Politicians and buiness like to claim that new jobs are created as these manufacturing jobs leave, but those new jobs have mostly been in the service sector and with low wages and poor benefits.
Trump: an arrogant man, ivy leage educated, from New York, living in a big city, born into wealth, not very religous in his personal life, not an avid hunter, and who never served in the military; is the best thing since sliced bread for Christians, the middle class, the second amendment, fly over country, our military and vets. Ironic, isn’t it?
I plan on sticking with my Japanese cars that are made right here in the USA.
GM is a pension plan that makes cars.
Even with tariffs now and then, the free market economic system worked and flourished in America in the 1800’s making America the richest and most powerful nation on earth going into the 1900’s, just as Adam Smith in 1776 said it would in his masterpiece, “The Wealth of Nations.”
All you’re saying is a free market economy can’t be found anywhere today. So what? All it takes is a laissez-faire government. That can happen pretty quickly and your objections would go down the drain. Truth remains while facts and circumstances can change overnight.
Sorry you’re so jaded that you can’t see your hand in front of your face..
GM = Government Motors. FUGGEDDABOUDDIT.
A friend works with an black man who’s near retirement. He shocks the young urbanites when he informs them that he’s a Republican. When they ask him why he’s not on the Dem plantation he replies, “ain’t no poor person ever gave me a job.” He never has to add anything to or defend it.
Hey Ford.....South Carolina is a Right to Work State, With a good labor force ( ask BMW, Michelin, and Boeing)
I guess that the uaw forgot the lesson of Lorain assembly.
Time to teach it again.
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