Ford, UAW reach deal on Focus plant

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Second-tier wage rate not included
BY BRENT SNAVELY and CHRISSIE THOMPSON
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITERS

Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative local agreement that would allow the automaker to build the 2012 Ford Focus compact car profitably at Michigan Assembly Plant without a second-tier wage rate like the one announced earlier this week at a General Motors subcompact car plant.
The tentative deal for Michigan Assembly was confirmed by Bill Johnson, a UAW Local 900 plant chairman, but it depends on reaching a deal at a nearby stamping plant.

"Right now, we are not talking about wages," UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles told the Free Press on Friday during an event where Ford CEO Alan Mulally was given the Edward H. McNamara Goodfellow of the Year Award. "There are many ways to create efficiencies without looking at wages," Settles noted.

Domestic automakers have struggled for years to make a profit off of small cars built in the U.S., largely because their relatively low prices don't fully cover the cost to build them here. The smaller and lower priced the car, the more challenging that is.

Earlier this week, union workers at General Motors' Orion Township plant said the company and UAW had agreed to allow 40% of the workforce there to be paid a second-tier wage of about $14 an hour.


Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20101009/BUSINESS01/10090322/

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