Ford, UAW reach agreement. When will Kentucky Truck Plant be back up to speed?
Workers at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant will soon be back to work after Ford and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract Wednesday, ending a strike that started about two weeks ago at the company’s largest factory.
With a tentative deal in place, UAW President Shawn Fain and Ford CEO and President Jim Farley called on all Ford strikers to return to work while the deal is being finalized. In a statement sent to media, Farley said the company is now focused on restarting operations at the Kentucky Truck Plant, Michigan Assembly Plant and Chicago Assembly Plant.
It’s unclear when the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant will be fully operational, but the multiple Louisville media outlets reported workers have a 48-hour grace period to return back to work. Some workers were back in the building Thursday morning, according to Louisville Public Media.
Todd Dunn, the president for UAW local 862, which represents workers at the Kentucky plant, praised his members’ solidarity over the last two weeks in a statement to the Herald-Leader Thursday.
“For the last two weeks, our members here at the Kentucky Truck Plant have been out in rain and shine holding the line fighting for the fair wages and benefits that we need and deserve,” Dunn said. “The truth is the level of solidarity that I witnessed is something that I have not seen before in my 29-years at UAW and the Kentucky Truck Plant.”
He said the deal reached by the negotiators was a “historic, life-changing agreement.
Roughly 8,700 workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant joined an ongoing strike in mid-October, delivering the biggest blow to Ford, as Fain described it. In a Wednesday night Facebook live-stream, Fain said the tentative deal is historic and a major victory for the UAW members.
“For months we’ve said that record profits record profits mean record contracts and UAW family, our stand up strike has delivered,” Fain said.
How quickly can the Kentucky Truck Plant get up to speed?
Effects from the strike will be felt in the coming weeks because bringing a plant back up to speed is much more difficult than taking it down, according to Bryce Currie, vice president of Ford North America’s manufacturing operations.
“That’s not just on the manufacturing plants within Ford, but it goes likewise for our suppliers,” Currie previously said. “It will be a slow ramp up before we can return back to that level. We’re dealing with a cold start.”
The workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant walked off the job before a regularly scheduled shift on Oct. 11. KTP is one of the biggest auto plants in the world; it rolls out a new truck every 37 seconds and generates roughly $25 billion in revenue yearly, according to Ford COO Kumar Galhotra. The plant is responsible for roughly 16% of Ford’s global revenue.
If the plant were a standalone business, it would make more money than Southwest Airlines, Marriott International and Nordstrom, according to Galhotra.
More than 3,000 employees were laid off as of Oct. 22 due to the UAW’s strike, according to Ford. More than 1,300 of those layoffs were attributed to the Kentucky Truck Plat strike.
Nearly 20,000 people in total were impacted by the strike, according to Ford.
What do UAW members get in the deal?
The deal includes a 25% general wage increase for workers. Starting wages will increase by 68% and top wage makers will see a 33% increase to their income.
“UAW members at Ford will receive more and straight general wage increases over the next four-and-a-half years than we have over the last 22 years combined,” UAW Vice President Jake Browning said.
More details about the deal could come out as early as Sunday evening if the UAW National Ford Council approves the tentative agreement. If the vote passes, UAW leaders will host a special Facebook live stream Sunday evening to go over the details of the deal.
Fain said the goal is to have the information about the agreement available digitally Sunday night.
Fain said the UAW was planning on expanding its strike Wednesday, pushing Ford to make an offer the UAW would accept.
“We knew we were getting close, but we also knew the companies needed a major push if we’re going to make sure we got every penny possible in this agreement,” Fain said.
The UAW members will have the final say whether or not to accept the offer. There will be multiple local and regional meetings to host discussions and answer questions about the deal with the members. After that, the members will vote on the deal.
