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With a majority of workers at three UAW locals now opposing a modified cost-saving labor contract with Ford Motor Co.— and just two locals voting to support the deal — the deal faces an uncertain fate.
Final ratification is based on a simple majority of the total votes cast by two separate classes: Production workers and skilled-trades workers.
Not all UAW locals that have completed voting have divulged precise tallies, and UAW officials in Detroit have declined to provide details. But so far, those protesting the deal have had some large wins.
That includes Sunday’s overwhelming opposition to the deal in Kansas City, Mo., where members of Local 249 voted 92% against the changes, said Jeff Wright, local president. The local in Claycomo, Mo., represents 3,737 workers who build the F-150 pickup and the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs.
So far, workers represented by UAW Local 900 in Wayne, where the Ford Focus is built, and workers represented by UAW Local 1250 in Brook Park, Ohio, have voted in favor of the deal.
Meanwhile, workers represented by UAW Local 182 at Ford’s Livonia Transmission Plant and by UAW Local 845 at a plant in Plymouth have voted against the contract, said Gary Walkowicz, a bargaining committeeman at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant. He is campaigning against the proposal.
Wright said the proposed contract changes, which were designed to bring Ford’s labor contract more in line with those the union has with General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, are widely unpopular.
“Ford says they are going to bring a new product here, and that would be great, but they said they were going to build a new body shop” in 2005, and still haven’t followed through, Wright said.“I understand what the financial situation at Ford is …but trying to relay that to the membership is hard.”
The UAW represents 41,000 workers at Ford, and UAW locals representing more than 7,000, or about 17%, of the workers have now concluded their vote.
So Harley Shaiken, a professor of labor relations at the University of California, Berkeley, said it might be too early to say how the vote will turn out.“It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen here,” Shaiken said.
Ford, the only Detroit automaker to decline emergency taxpayer assistance during the recession, has had difficulty convincing UAW members it needs the same contract terms that the UAW granted to GM and Chrysler on the eve of their bankruptcies.
The agreement calls for a wage freeze for entry-level workers, a commitment to binding arbitration in 2011 for disagreements over pay and benefit increases and a consolidation of skilled-trades classifications. In return, Ford has agreed to provide additional work to a number of plants.
Several workers have also been reluctant to approve the deal based on Ford’s increasing success. Ford is scheduled to release its third-quarter financial results on Monday.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told the Associated Press on Saturday that opponents are telling workers that the UAW is giving up its right to strike in the next round of contract talks in 2011 — a charge Gettelfinger says is untrue.
“The Ford members retain the right to strike on every issue except improvements in wages and benefits,” Gettelfinger said.“Those in opposition to this agreement are using that as an issue.”
“I mean, ancestors have worked for it for many generations," London said Sunday after attending a meeting at UAW Local 600 in Dearborn, which is scheduled to vote later this week.
“We just want them to have a full understanding of the proposal,” said Spears, whose local represents 2,200 Ford workers at a plant in Flat Rock that produces the Mazda 6 and Ford Mustang
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