2023-10-16 18:47:00
A historic strike has been affecting the automobile sector in the United States for a month. Bill Ford, great-grandson of the founder of the famous automobile brand, asks the UAW union to end the conflict.
Bill Ford, great-grandson of the founder of the eponymous automaker and current chairman of its board of directors, appealed Monday to his “colleagues” in the UAW union to put an end to the “cycle of acrimonious negotiations” and the “devastating” strike.
“I appeal to my fantastic colleagues at the UAW (…). We must come together to end this cycle of acrimonious negotiations,” declared Bill Ford, from the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn (Michigan) .
The Ford group, like its two major competitors in the United States General Motors and Stellantis, has been affected since mid-September by a strike linked to the development of the next collective agreements. Nearly 34,000 employees are mobilized, out of their 146,000 enrolled at the UAW.
This is the first time that all three groups have been targeted at the same time.
The list of mobilized sites has grown or not as discussions progressed, affecting secondary factories, but the United Auto Workers union struck a major blow last week by shutting down the Kentucky Truck Plant ( KTP), Ford’s largest plant. It generates 25 billion dollars in turnover per year.
The president of the union, Shawn Fain, explained Friday that Ford had submitted on Wednesday afternoon exactly the same offer as two weeks earlier, “without additional money”, hence the walkout decided immediately.
“We are at a crossroads. (…) It should not be Ford against the UAW, it should be Ford and the UAW against Toyota, Honda, Tesla and all the Chinese groups that want to enter our market”, Bill Ford said.
An “escalation”
“We agree that our UAW colleagues deserve more. That’s why we offered a record contract, which would place them among the highest paid industrial workers in the world,” he said. -it belongs. “Despite this, the UAW has opted for escalation,” he lamented.
According to Bill Ford, “closing (the KTP) immediately harms tens of thousands of Americans. Employees, suppliers, dealers.”
“Bill Ford knows exactly how to resolve this strike,” responded Shawn Fain, “he should contact Jim Farley (Ford boss, Editor’s note), tell him to stop playing with fire and make a deal.”
“Otherwise, we will close (Ford) Rouge for him,” warned the unionist. “It’s not Ford and the UAW against foreign manufacturers. It’s auto workers everywhere against corporate greed,” he said.
If the strike continues, “it will have a major impact on the American economy and devastate local communities,” said Bill Ford, estimating that “the supply network is very fragile and will begin to collapse with an extended strike” .
“After 120 years of existence, Ford remains a family business. (…) All this is extremely personal for me,” underlined the man who joined Ford in 1979, led it from 2001 to 2006 and who chairs from its board of directors.
“I am working for a bright future, not just for my children and grandchildren but for the hundreds of thousands of families who depend on the Ford group,” assured Bill Ford. “Let’s come together, find an agreement so that we can fight against real competition,” he said.
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