At the Dearborn Truck Plant today, Wednesday, the Unit's elected leadership passed out a letter calling for a NO vote.
The letter was signed by the plant chairman, the vice-president, and about half of the elected district and bargaining committee reps.
In response, Bob King came in to the plant on the afternoon shift. The company shut down production to have him speak. The workers booed Bob King off the platform and would not let him speak.
Gary Walkowicz
"A" Crew Bargaining Committeeman
DTP, Local 600
Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., seeking approval of an accord to cut labor costs, faces opposition from some United Auto Workers members, including a group at a Michigan plant that shouted down a union leader touting the deal yesterday.
UAW Vice President Bob King, who leads the union’s Ford department, was greeted by chants of “No, no, no,” from about 500 workers who gathered when the automaker halted production for him to speak at the Dearborn pickup-truck factory, said Gary Walkowicz, a union official at the plant.
Ford, the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy, won support from UAW local leaders last week on an agreement that would grant concessions similar to those won by General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. The accord at Dearborn-based Ford, which still must be voted on by union members, includes a six-year ban on some strikes and a wage freeze for new hires.
“In 17 years as a union official, this is the first time I’ve gone against the views of the international leadership,” said Nick Kottalis, president of the Dearborn truck unit of UAW Local 600. He was among seven union leaders at the plant who signed a letter recommending a vote against the accord. King came to the factory after the letter was distributed yesterday.
“The biggest problem I have with this agreement is having an arbitrator possibly deciding on strike issues,” Kottalis said in an interview. “I’m not very confident in an arbitrator siding with the UAW.”
Kottalis’s unit represents about 2,300 workers at the pickup-truck plant and is the largest in Local 600, where members are voting on the agreement today through Oct. 30. The local is the Detroit-based union’s biggest at Ford.
The UAW represents about 41,000 Ford workers. Union locals are setting timetables for voting on the accord. UAW spokesman Roger Kerson wouldn’t immediately comment today.
Company Response
“Because the union owns the ratification process, we do not comment at all about it,” Marcey Evans, a Ford spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “We also will not speculate about voting results. We only will comment on our agreement after the ratification process is complete.”
Ford is offering workers a $1,000 bonus and pledges of new production to help win approval of the deal. UAW members at the automaker already agreed to some givebacks in March, before GM and Chrysler went through government-aided bankruptcy reorganizations and won additional union concessions.
‘Weakened Position’
“Giving up the strike weapon is controversial because not only is the company asking for double concessions, but they’re saying that in future negotiations you won’t be able to get what you’ve lost back by using a strike,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. “Workers look at this as putting them in a permanently weakened position.”
Ford’s UAW workers “were told in the last set of concessions in March that they wouldn’t have to come at us for any more,” Walkowicz said. “And now they’ve come back.”
Kottalis supported the March concessions, which Ford has said would cut its annual labor costs by $500 million.
“But to come back six months later, come on,” he said. “We’re doing much better. The stock is up. We’ve got the best products around.”
A majority of workers at the Dearborn truck plant voted against the March concessions, which were ratified by 59 percent of production workers and 58 percent of skilled-trades employees nationwide.
“Dearborn truck will once again vote this down, there’s no question about that,” said Victor Bean, a worker at the plant. “People aren’t stupid. You can’t beg broke when things are turning around.”
Possible Profit
Ford next week may report a “surprise profit” of $480 million, or 16 cents a share, for the third quarter, Himanshu Patel, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst with a “neutral” rating on Ford, wrote in an Oct. 19 note to investors. The average of 11 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg is for an adjusted loss of 23 cents a share.
“There will be a lot of angry workers if they have to give up the right to strike and agree to more concessions and then the company shows a profit,” Chaison said. “Right now in the auto industry, a profit is an embarrassment of riches.”
Ford fell 2 cents to $7.76 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have more than tripled this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Naughton in Southfield, Michigan at Knaughton3@bloomberg.net
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