Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford calls on autoworkers to end strike, says company's future is at stake
Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford calls on autoworkers to end strike, says company's future is at stake
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford called on autoworkers to come together and end a monthlong strike that he says could cost the company the ability to invest in the future.
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford called on autoworkers to come together to end a monthlong strike that he says could cost the company the ability to invest in the future.
In a rare speech during contract talks in the company’s hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, Ford said high labor costs could limit spending to develop new vehicles and invest in factories. “It’s the absolute lifeblood of our company. And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. America loses. Many jobs will be lost,” said the great grandson of company founder Henry Ford.
The company, he said, builds more vehicles in America and has more United Auto Workers employees than any company, which has increased its costs in a highly competitive industry.
Ford has 57,000 UAW workers compared with 46,000 at GM and 43,000 at Stellantis. “Many of our competitors moved jobs to Mexico as we added jobs here in the U.S.,” Ford said.
Ford Motor Co.'s second-quarter profit more than tripled to $1.92 billion versus a year ago (source)
Revenue rose 12% to $44.95 billionKinda hard to drum up sympathy for the company when it's raking in almost $2 billion in profit per quarter. Yes, Ford is burning about $1billon per quarter on EVs right now. That's not something the workers should be financing. That's money the company is investing to be viable in the future. That sucks for the shareholders; but, they are the ones who will reap any benefits of that investment and they should be the ones eating the cost.
His salary in 2022 was 17.3 million and that’s down from 18.7 million in 2021. They could have paid 200 employees 85k a year instead of one pointless executive. So maybe the executives are the reason for the company going under.
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Ford spent almost $500 million on stock buybacks in 2022. GM spent around $3 billion. Maybe priorities needs to be adjusted.
Lmao, talk to any former ford employee and they'll probably show the middle finger to the entire board if they could.
They run the layoff cycle literally every other year to cut costs whenever sales even hint at slowing down, all while paying CEOs massive money.
"Yeah we moved to mexico less than our competitors so that makes us better"
Oh boohoo Bill.
But he also said Ford is paying CEO Jim Farley $21 million per year when starting pay for Ford factory workers is up only about $3 per hour from when he started with the company 31 years ago.
Ford’s offer of a 23% general wage increase barely covers inflation over the last three or four years, said Applebee, 59.
Sounds to me like he has plenty of power to end the strike, he can see the concrete requirements from the workers. Grant them, in full, strike ends, company safe. Sounds simple Mr. 21 Million plus perks.
Well then Ford make a decision. Do you want a company or not, because you can absolutely remain profitable whilst paying your employees properly. Without employees to do the labor to make the products you sell you have nothing, so it seems like the best course of action would be to make sure the folks ensuring your business has product to sell should be properly motivated to continue to want to provide their time and labor. Their time is the same as the Csuite's time, you cannot get it back, so they deserve to get paid properly.
Any business that can’t afford to pay its workers a living wage shouldn’t remain in business.
Ford C-suite took home $71 million in 2021 (most recent year I could find data). They could give each worker a $1000+ bonus and still walk away with $10 million. Not that $1000 is enough for each worker, but just to illustrate that there is a ton of money floating around, they just don't want the workers to have it. It's not future investment they're worried about (they get massive tax breaks for all these new facilities, and new car designs are all being done by salaried white collar engineers anyway), it's shareholder profits. Ford doesn't want to lower their reported annual profits by increasing their worker costs.
Fuck shareholders, and fuck the C-suite for looking out for their interests instead of their workers. They don't actually produce anything. The workers are the real company asset here, not some Wall Street goon who bought stock.
Maybe you should make your workers whole then. Sounds like that’s a you problem not a union problem.
Ford should just get rid of their C-level executive team.
Decent ownership would sacrifice most of of their profits to see the company through difficult periods, as was done prior to the Jack Welch/Ronald Reagan corporate culture sociopathification half a century ago when the oligarchs decided to abandon any mutual respect for their workers and exploit everything away from their labor force, after sabotaging labor power legislatively of course.
That doesn't happen anymore though. Bill Ford will never encounter a moment of concern about how he'll afford groceries or a mortgage, regardless of the outcome of this strike. Fuck these capitalist manipulators, and fuck this country for bowing to the desires of the haves while ignoring the needs of the have nots.
Why should the laborers, America's paycheck to paycheck losers, care about the future of this exploitative country's ability to remain as it is, systematically fucking them over? Why would they want their children to be subject to this rigged system as it currently is?
If the laborers weren't propagandized from birth by the capitalists to believe this rigged economy to be the only way, they'd be actively burning this crooked place down to the ground.
I bet plantation owners made similar speeches.
Then agree to every single one of their demands.
Saving companies from a striking workforce is incredibly easy.
Oh yeah well that's fine with me
Oh wait, you’re serious?
In a rare speech during contract talks in the company’s hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, Ford said high labor costs could limit spending to develop new vehicles and invest in factories. “It’s the absolute lifeblood of our company. And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. America loses. Many jobs will be lost,” said the great grandson of company founder Henry Ford.
Okay, go ahead and spend on R&D and factories, if that is the "absolute lifeblood of [your] company." Good luck producing those new cars in new factories with no workers.
Have you… Considered compensating your workers fairly?
Good, keep it at stake.
His speech read more like a threat than anything else.
Man, you'd have to be a real shitty Executive to have your 100+ year old company sunk because of a single strike....
The only unskilled labor is executives.
cut your pay down to their level, then you can judge them for wanting higher pay
If only there was a fairly quick way to get those workers back to work. That would be nice, Bill, right? Like... just imagine if there was some sort of agreement you could reach with them and they returned back to work immediately. Funny fantasy, right Bill? Right?
Oh no... anyways.
Fuck executives. Everything they touch goes to shit.
That's a stunning admission, mighty close to admitting straight to the workers' faces that they are winning. What stronger sign could there be that holding the line is exactly the right thing to do?
Lol fuck this guy. He could end the strike if he weren't a greedy rich bastard.
Not at stake enough to meet their demands I suppose
Henry Ford was an asshole who inspired Hitler. I'm not sure his grandson is any better.
After all you can trust a company that creates shortages by simply stopping production so they drive up the cost of their popular vehicles.
Is it possible to get direct links? I don’t have a Reddit account and don’t want to create one. Currently all posted links connect to a Reddit post requiring login to access.
Thanks!
How does that boot tastes?
Good. If the business is at stake then the shareholders should have no objections to paying these people what they're worth and doing so for all factories, not just the factories producing outdated internal combustion engines.
Good. If the business is at stake then the shareholders should have no objections to paying these people what they're worth and doing so for all factories, not just the factories producing outdated internal combustion engines.
