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.
So?
If you can't pay your workers a living wage, you don't fucking deserve to exist as a company.
Cry more, capitalist.
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.” - FDR
And just in case there is any confusion, here's the next line:
By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
If he saw what modern minimum wage has become, he would be disgusted.
The republicans sure have a problem defining decency
Not really, they just define it the same as everything else they don’t like: decency is “woke”
Nah they define it just fine. "how can you be poor if you own a microwave?"
If they're paying dividends to shareholders, and fatcat salaries to CEO / upper board, whilst their workers need gov topups and assistance to survive… they can get fucked.
It never fails to amaze me that there's so much focus on 'benefit scroungers', whilst a majority of big businesses gain the giant benefit of cheap wages while their workers need gov assistance to get by. There are piggies with their snouts at the top, and they sit on the boards / are CEOs of big companies & multinationals.
It's the usual backwards conservative shit, much like their stance on illegal immigration. They demonize immigrants from Central America while largely conservative businesses are the ones who hire them and give them a reason to come here. So, as DeSantis found out, they don't actually want laws to stop it. Same with welfare, like you're saying… they act like people on public assistance are scum somehow, and like they want to decrease it, but then companies like Walmart are setup to benefit from it by being able to pay their workers less.
Same way with culture war stuff. No business community wants a boycott. People not doing business with you is often times bad for business.
For reference, hourly workers at Ford currently make $78K, and they rejected Ford's proposed increase to $92K.
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They are holding out for $110K.
and they deserve it. They sacrificed and helped the big 3 stay in business 15 years ago and that kindness was never repaid. I live in Detroit and the anger felt by the workers over this fact is not going anywhere. Time for compensation.
Also for reference, about a decade ago during the last contract negotiation, workers forgoed pay raises in order to help these struggling companies bottom line with the promise that they'd get their raises in the future all while inflation hammered away at their stagnant pay. These workers are owed that money.
So you’re saying your workers are important to you?
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 $1billon per quarter on EVs right now. That's not something the workers should be financing. That's money the company is investing to be viable in the future. That sucks for the shareholders; but, they are the ones who will reap any benefits of that investment and they should be the ones eating the cost.
they are the ones who will reap any benefits of that investment and they should be the ones eating the cost.
They seem to have forgotten that "The investor takes the risk", sometimes its not all fst dividends.
Sounds like the executives should take a pay cut.
Realistically executive salaries probably won't cover a salary increase across the workforce foe the whole country. Not doing a stock buy back just might though.
Oh, i really hope someone does the math on this one.
Take 100mil off his comp for employees, divide by their 57,000 UAWs listed above, divide by 52 (weeks), then 40 (hrs). Gets you an 0.84$ per hour per employee.
In reality, based on latest filing, CEO’s comp for 2022 was 21 mil so 0.16$ raise per employee if you didn’t pay the ceo.
Ford did 484mil $ in buy backs in 2022. Would give each 4$/hr raise
Seen this a few times. Rarely does the ceo taking less really make much of a dent for people living paycheck to paycheck. Yea 16 cents is better than nothing but also not what these people need.
That's just the CEO though. What about everyone else near that level?
I would say all of the execs need lower pay. That would give them $52 million which works out to an extra $0.42/hr or about $900 per year. That is a perfectly fine addition to the $4/hr from stock buybacks.
Stock buy backs were a single transaction, not a recurring annual transaction, so not apples to apples on wage.
What they should have done is grant those stocks to their employees. Or their pension fund, whatever mechanism is most fair.
To your point, it spreads thinly over a large work force. But sharing profits is the "right" thing to do.
A lot of that CEO comp is also not in the form of cash, it's in the form of things like stocks. So a lack of stock buy backs would automatically lower CEO/exec comp as well. That lowered Exec pay wouldn't go directly to the employees (since it can't be double counted) but if one of the goals is closing the delta as some have mentioned then no buy backs helps with both.
Por que no los dos?
The issue is the massive delta they've created. If it was 2to1 it wouldn't be such a sticking point.
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.
That's just salary.
His other compensations, benefits, and free services like company jets and private dining, provide a very significant increase of their own.
C-level compensation is never merely in pay, there's a whole incredibly expensive ecosystem to support as well.
And, in addition to his surprising decision to pay himself more than his predecessor, he was a major stock holder before he took over the position, so he's getting dividends and stockholder equity as well.
Heyyyy, wait a minute.
Didn't he decide to do a stock buyback with company funds? 3.5 billion worth over the past decade? $400 million in the last year?
Weren't those things considered the kind of market manipulation that helped cause the Great Depression?
That sounds like $3.5B of equity that could be leveraged to develop new vehicles, build new factories, and pay employees a fair wage.
Not that I'm remotely defending corporate bloat, but it is important to do the math and make sure we're fighting the right battles. 3.5B sounds like a lot, but Ford has around 175k US employees, if you divide that 3.5B over the ten years over the 175k employees, that's only an extra $2000/employee/yr. $2000/yr is not going to help a factory worker's future medical debt nor allow someone to afford a house or a family that couldn't $2k ago. One could probably even with a straight face make the argument that 3.5b in stock buybacks sets Ford up for future sustainability, and ensures they can keep the bulk of those workers in the US that probably could be exported for cheaper.
What we need back is the culture of taking care of corporations that take care of you when you retire. Pensions and stock options for regular employees.
3.5B sounds like a lot, but Ford has around 175k US employees, if you divide that 3.5B over the ten years over the 175k employees, that's only an extra $2000/employee/yr. $2000/yr is not going to help a factory worker's future medical debt nor allow someone to afford a house or a family that couldn't $2k ago.
Show me someone who wouldn't take an additional 2K/year for the same work.
That's not the point, the point is that 2k/yr isn't life altering. We need to be pushing for more fundamental reforms than "stock buybacks bad"
Ford Motor net income for the twelve months ending June 30, 2023 was $4.136B
41 billion in net profit over 10 years
Dude, how are you meant to InnOvAtE with a measly 41 billion?
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How does that boot tastes?
First, let's talk about stock buybacks, government bailouts, pandemic assistance money, and record profits, all of which happened after workers accepted reduced pay and reduced benefits to help "make the company profitable again".
Remember folks, profits means money is being withheld from the workers.
Profit also means money isn't being used for future investment into the company. Funny, they weren't complaining about these lack of investments just a year or two ago when cars were getting marked up and selling $10k+ above MSRP.
Or when they did several billion in stock baybacks.
Everything short of a cooperative is a compromise.
Fuckin' aholes are also still hitting new profit records. They can cry me a river.
Their company wouldn't exist without the hard workers, as there would be nothing to sell.
In case someone relevant sees this, this might be a great way for Ford's competitors to rope in skilled, experienced employees. I'm sure that many employees are thinking about other places after seeing this "call to end the strike". I know I would be.
What an embarrassing thing to say to your staff. What an embarrassing thing to say publicly. These people must be more detached from reality than I thought.
Y'know, he could always just AGREE TO THEIR TERMS! The company being at stake is the entire point of unionizing.
I also think he should, but he says that if he did, the company would lose to competition.
He says that. But he also just said that stupid thing in the headline, so …
Then their business model needs some TLC. Those suits need to earn their high wages snd come up with better plans.
That argument is uncompelling when the union is striking their competition as well.
The competition is in other countries. I do agree with the strike.
Sounds like a bad business strategy is the real problem.
I mean if you can't afford to innovate and pay your staff a livable wage then you don't have a sound business model.
Ford spent almost $500 million on stock buybacks in 2022. GM spent around $3 billion. Maybe priorities needs to be adjusted.
"This strike is preventing my company from having a future"
Umm. Yes. Yes it is. That's the entire point you complete idiot.
"You should all know this strike has been highly effective. Which is why you should stop it! Immediately!
Isn't it he who has the power to end the strike?
And probably the one with millions in bonuses at the end of the strike.
Sounds like Bill needs to pull himself up by his bootstraps.
But what about all the work his grest grandfather did to build the company? Shouldn't he be entitled to live large off that man's work by virtue of his birthright?
So what if these workers who actually build the product that Ford sells can't afford food or shelter. This man struggled to be born into the correct family, and he's entitled to his fortune!
Boo hoo rich guy, take care of your fucking employees
Old codger born with a silver spoon asks blue collars to make sacrifices yet again.
Silver spoon? I don't think even calling him a gold spoon would be enough. Maybe diamond spoon.
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.
That is fucking insane. $3 per hour wage increase in 31 years?!
Starting pay. A lot of unions have fucked new people to get better deals for people with longer tenure. Someone who started 30 years ago is already eligible for full retirement and got way more than $3/hour in raises.
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The workers:
"But, we're a Family!", Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford, probably.
Time for our yearly pizza party!
BYOBAnd BYOP…
