United Auto Employees President Shawn Fain during an internet broadcast updating union members on negotiations with the Detroit automakers on Oct. 6, 2023.
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DETROIT — The United Auto Employees is threatening a labor strike at Ford Motor’s largest U.S. plant if local union demands aren’t resolved by next week.
The Detroit union on Friday said nearly 9,000 UAW autoworkers at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant could strike at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 23 if local contract issues remain. The plant — Ford’s largest when it comes to employment and revenue — produces Ford Super Duty pickups in addition to Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigator SUVs.
Local contracts differ from the national agreements that the union ratified in late 2023 with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis. They cope with plant-specific issues and might over and over go unresolved for months, if not years, after the national deals are ratified.
The union said “core issues in Kentucky Truck Plant’s local negotiations are health and safety within the plant, including minimum in-plant nurse staffing levels and ergonomic issues, in addition to Ford’s continued attempts to erode the expert trades at Kentucky Truck Plant.”
Factory employees and UAW union members form a picket line outside the Ford Motor Co. Kentucky Truck Plant within the early morning hours on October 12, 2023 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Luke Sharrett | Getty Images
It was not immediately clear why the union set the strike deadline on the Ford plant and never others. There are 19 other open local agreements across Ford, together with several open local agreements at GM and Stellantis.Â
Ford, which has prided itself on its relationship with the UAW, in an emailed statement said: “Negotiations proceed and we stay up for reaching an agreement with UAW Local 862 at Kentucky Truck Plant.”
The strike deadline comes a day after UAW President Shawn Fain criticized Ford CEO Jim Farley over comments he made indicating the automaker will “think twice” about where it builds future vehicles in light of adjusting market conditions and contentious negotiations last yr with the union, which included six weeks of targeted strikes.
Farley specifically mentioned the UAW’s October strike against the Kentucky Truck Plant as a key moment in the corporate’s changing relationship with the union.
“We were the primary truck plant they shut down … Clearly our relationship has modified. It has been a watershed moment for the corporate. Does it have business impact? Yes,” Farley said Thursday during a Wolfe Research investor conference. “As we have a look at this EV transition and [internal combustion engine]Â lasting longer and our truck business being more profitable, now we have to think twice about our footprint.”
Fain, who has been a historically combative union leader, responded, partly, by saying: “Possibly Ford doesn’t have to move factories to search out the most affordable labor on Earth,” he said. “Possibly it must recommit to American employees and discover a CEO who’s focused on the long run of this country’s auto industry.”
