DETROIT, (Reuters) – United Auto Workers yesterday shut down Ford’s F.N biggest plant globally, halting production of lucrative pickup trucks with little warning, in a sharp escalation of the union’s four-week targeted strike against the Detroit Three automakers.
The UAW said that 8,700 union members at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant went on strike after the union said the No. 2 U.S. automaker refused to move further in contract bargaining.
Automakers have more than doubled initial wage hike offers, agreed to raise wages along with inflation, and improved pay for temporary workers, but the union wants higher wages still, the abolishment of a two-tier wage system and the expansion of unions to battery plants at all three companies.
UAW President Shawn Fain’s decision to shut down assembly lines that build Ford Super Duty pickup trucks and Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition large SUVs is a blow to Ford that could quickly undermine the automaker’s full-year profits.
Ford’s Kentucky truck plant, its most profitable operation, generates $25 billion in annual revenue, about a sixth of the company’s global automotive revenue. The company’s shares fell about 2% in after-hours trading, after closing 0.4% higher on Wednesday.
Fain and other UAW officials called a meeting with Ford at 5:30 pm ET (21:30 GMT) on Wednesday and demanded a new offer, which Ford did not have, a Ford official said.
“You just lost Kentucky Truck,” Fain said, according to the Ford official and a union source, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are not public.
“This is all you have for us? Our members’ lives and my handshake are worth more than this,” Fain added, according to the union source.
Ford said the decision was “grossly irresponsible but unsurprising given the union leadership’s stated strategy of keeping the Detroit 3 wounded for months through ‘reputational damage’ and ‘industrial chaos.’”
The Kentucky walkout is also a warning to General Motors GM.N and Chrysler parent Stellantis STLAM.MI, whose wage and benefits offers fall short of Ford’s, based on summaries the automakers and the UAW have released.
Fain said on Friday he was ready to strike the GM assembly plant in Arlington, Texas that builds Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Suburban and other large, high-priced SUVs.
High-profit targets at Stellantis include the automaker’s Ram pickup truck factories in Sterling Heights and Warren, Michigan, as well as two Jeep SUV factories in Detroit.
