DETROIT – One day after Ford CEO said union activity was making him reconsider where the company puts its plants, the United Auto Workers union is threatening a strike at the company’s largest and most profitable factory.
The union said Friday that nearly 9,000 workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville will strike on Feb. 23 if a dispute over the local contract is not resolved.
If there’s a strike, it would be the second time the union has walked out at the sprawling factory in the past year, after UAW workers shut down the plant in October during national contract negotiations that ended with large raises for employees.
The plant, one of two Ford factories in Louisville, makes heavy-duty F-Series pickup trucks and the Ford Excursion and Lincoln Navigator large SUVs, all hugely profitable vehicles for the company.
The union says that workers have been without a local contract for five months. The main areas of dispute are health and safety issues, minimum in-plant nurse staffing, ergonomic issues, and the company’s effort to reduce the number of skilled trades workers. The strike could begin at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 23, the union says, noting that there are 19 other local agreements being negotiated with Ford, and several more at rivals General Motors and Stellantis.
A message was left Friday seeking comment from Ford.
The day before, Ford CEO Jim Farley told an analysts’ conference in New York that last fall’s contentious strike changed Ford’s relationship with the union to the point where the automaker will “think carefully” about where it builds future vehicles.
“It was an extremely difficult moment for the company,” Farley said during remarks to the Wolfe Research Global Auto and Auto Tech Conference in New York. “It’s been a watershed moment for the company. Does it have a business impact? Yes.”
To read more, click on Fortune
