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Ford ‘Careful’ About Manufacturing in United States Post UAW Strike
The Epoch Times ^ | 2/17/24 | By Naveen Athrappully

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: automotive; ford; manufacturing; outsourcing; uaw; unions
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Unions may have had their purpose decades ago. That time however has long passed.

paywall free link:

1 posted on 02/17/2024 10:06:33 AM PST by CFW
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To: CFW
Ford ‘Careful’ About Manufacturing in United States Post UAW Strike
2 posted on 02/17/2024 10:07:38 AM PST by CFW (I will not comply!)
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To: CFW

Unions are like ismalic jihadists: No one enjoys a cordial relationship with either.


3 posted on 02/17/2024 10:10:13 AM PST by DPMD (ua)
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To: CFW

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.


4 posted on 02/17/2024 10:11:56 AM PST by PGR88
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To: CFW

Unions outlived their purpose long ago. Now they just destroy companies. They pushed steel production out of the US forever. Crushed the auto industry.


5 posted on 02/17/2024 10:16:56 AM PST by Aut Pax Aut Bellum (What did Socialists use before candles? Electricity)
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To: CFW

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.


6 posted on 02/17/2024 10:20:07 AM PST by Robert DeLong
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To: Robert DeLong

If Ford keep going the way they are, they won’t have to worry about manufacturing vehicles anywhere.


7 posted on 02/17/2024 10:29:27 AM PST by Dutch Boy (The only thing worse than having something taken from you is to have it returned broken. )
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To: CFW

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.


8 posted on 02/17/2024 10:31:53 AM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: CFW

Ford should move production to Canada and Mexico, then drop all EV production.


9 posted on 02/17/2024 10:35:07 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: CFW

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.


10 posted on 02/17/2024 10:43:07 AM PST by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: Gen.Blather

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.


11 posted on 02/17/2024 10:56:23 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Aut Pax Aut Bellum

They also crushed the Construction equipment industry - Hyundai - Komatsu and Liu Gong have taken over the equipment industry - No unions involved.


12 posted on 02/17/2024 10:59:40 AM PST by EC Washington
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To: Jim W N

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.


13 posted on 02/17/2024 11:03:04 AM PST by EEGator
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To: PGR88

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?


14 posted on 02/17/2024 11:09:16 AM PST by Red6
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To: Jim W N

I plan on sticking with my Japanese cars that are made right here in the USA.

GM is a pension plan that makes cars.


15 posted on 02/17/2024 11:12:02 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” - Possibly Mark Twain.)
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To: EEGator

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..


16 posted on 02/17/2024 11:14:07 AM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult

GM = Government Motors. FUGGEDDABOUDDIT.


17 posted on 02/17/2024 11:15:14 AM PST by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Red6

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.


18 posted on 02/17/2024 11:20:25 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes” - Possibly Mark Twain.)
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To: All

Hey Ford.....South Carolina is a Right to Work State, With a good labor force ( ask BMW, Michelin, and Boeing)


19 posted on 02/17/2024 12:05:13 PM PST by Robe (A nation can survive its fools and even n the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: CFW

I guess that the uaw forgot the lesson of Lorain assembly.
Time to teach it again.


20 posted on 02/17/2024 1:19:45 PM PST by joe fonebone (And the people said NO! The End)
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