UAW union leader ‘optimistic’ Ford deal will pass

DETROIT – With the ratification prospects of the UAW union’s tentative agreement with Ford appearing to be in jeopardy, UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said Wednesday he still believes that the agreement will be approved by workers.

“I’m optimistic,” Settles said during a press conference in suburban Detroit. “I know it’s dark now, but I am optimistic.”

Settles said workers are still voting at several assembly plants as well as other plants that are part of UAW Local 600.

However, Settles acknowledged that a majority of workers at plants that represent 75 percent of Ford’s workers have already voted on the proposed four-year agreement.

The voting process got off to a positive start last week with workers at several plants voting in favor of it. However, the voting trend started shifting Sunday when workers at a large assembly plant in Kansas City, Mo., voted against the national agreement. On Tuesday, workers at two big assembly plants in Louisville, Ky., also voted against the agreement.

With all of those pants included, 52 percent of the more than 26,000 Ford workers who have voted so far have voted to reject the agreement, according to a tally of votes supplied to the Detroit Free Press. To be ratified, a majority of Ford’s 52,900 workers nationwide must vote in favor of the agreement.

Workers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, Dearborn Truck Plant in suburban Detroit and several other plants in Dearborn are still voting in a process that will end Friday.

Those workers could still turn the tide on the agreement, said UAW Local 600 President Bernie Ricke.

Settles and Ricke said one of the challenges is that Ford has hired 16,000 new workers in recent years and those workers are new to the UAW negotiation process.

“I think part of it is getting them to understand the process and the balance, and the money in the agreement. There are significant economic improvements for everyone.”

One of the biggest complaints about the agreement is that it does not provide a fast enough progression up to the top wage for workers hired after 2007.

Entry level workers who are making between $15.78 and $19.28 per hour now would see their wages raised immediately to $17 to $22.50 and would then progress up to about $29 per hour over an eight-year period. Many would reach the top wage faster.

Settles and Ricke spoke Wednesday morning at UAW Local 600, one of the union’s largest locals in the nation. UAW Local 600 represents several thousand workers at several Ford plants, including the automaker’s Dearborn Truck Plant, where it makes the F-150 pickup truck.

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Ricke also stressed that the proposed agreement is the best agreement UAW negotiators were able to get.

“If we thought there was another dollar on the table we would have got it in the first agreement,” he said.

Settles said many new UAW members don’t understand that if this agreement is rejected, and the UAW goes back to the bargaining table, the entire contract will be open for renegotiation.

He also warned that if the UAW is forced to go back to the bargaining table, it could lose some of Ford’s product commitments. Under the current agreement, Ford has promised to invest $9 billion in the U.S. over the next four years and create 8,500 new jobs.

“When you go back to the table, everything is off the table. So you are negotiating everything all over again,” Settles said. “A lot of people, especially younger people, think you just go and open door No. 2 and see if something is behind door No. 2. That is not how real negotiations go.”

Kristin Dziczek, director of the labor and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research, said some UAW members have set their expectations too high and don’t understand that today’s automakers are weighing investment decisions between the U.S. and Mexico.

In April, Ford announced plans to spend $2.5 billion in Mexico to build a new generation of fuel-efficient engines and transmissions. Ford also has said it will move production of the Ford Focus and Ford C-Max compact cars outside the U.S.

“If the UAW represented a greater share of the U.S. auto industry, it would help them gain greater leverage at the bargaining table, but those gains would still be tempered by the global automotive competitive reality,” Dziczek said.