Ford Workers in Kansas City Turn Down Proposed UAW Deal

Ford workers in Kansas City voted down a proposed contract between the automaker and the United Auto Workers, the local union reported on its Facebook page ( via Automotive News). Kansas City produces many of the company’s profitable F-150 trucks.

According to the final tally, 54 percent of union workers and just over 50 percent of skilled trades workers voted against the proposed deal. The defeat was the first major setback for the company, whose workers in Wayne and other plants overwhelmingly voted to approve the deal. Last week, several hundred workers at Ford’s axle plant voted against the proposed deal.

Workers in Kansas City threatened to strike last month when it said Ford wasn’t negotiating in good faith with workers at that plant.

Members of UAW Local 249 reported on the union’s Facebook site that only roughly two-thirds of workers there voted on the contract.

The union reported that 2,100 production workers voted to approve the deal, with 2,449 workers rejecting the deal on its Facebook site. According to some commenters, roughly 7,500 production workers are represented by the union at the Kansas City plant, which means one-third of those workers didn’t vote on the contract.

According to Automotive News, workers at Ford’s Buffalo stamping facility joined Kansas City voters in turning back the deal from the automaker. About 61 percent of workers there turned back the deal, according to Automotive News.

Ford, in its latest proposed contract, offered its workers pay raises and a $10,000 signing bonus, along with other annual payments. The proposed deal also left unchanged the company’s profit-sharing program that pays workers $1 for every $1 million in company profits.

Ford workers have complained that the contract doesn’t go far enough in offering annual cost of living pay increases and ending the automaker’s controversial alternative work schedule that emphasizes fewer, longer shifts.