A very long post for those interested in some of the numbers in the Ford/UAW story.
Intuit; Their is no $60K union employees, $112K average for wages and benefits. Not sure who "they" getting the profits other than the people that invested their money in Ford stocks. profit sharing is offered at many jobs even for hourly employees and bonuses are almost a required feature of upper level manage agreements. Without a return on their investment stockholders will dump the stock and the increases in costs will be crazy due to credit rating drops on lower stock prices. It will cost Ford much more on the interest on the credit needed to operate. An NFL player just signed a 5 year, $55 million dollar a year deal or $3.25 million a game..............all salaries are getting crazy but to get top people that is what the market calls for. 15% of a new union built car is wages and benefits, dump the union and reduce our car prices. A new Mustang GT/CS like my wifes 2019 is $17,000 more in just 4 years. No way we would now pay over $64K for that car and it will go even higher after this contract. Hell you can get a really nice Shelby GT350 for that price, just saw an ad in Hemmings for a 1 owner 12K mile '17 for $60k asking price. So if we want a new Mustang after this contract it will be a used Shelby.
Dollars and Sense
The UAW wants a 4 day work week and paid for 5, that alone is a 20% raise, add the 30% increase that is a 50% increase in wages, stupid in my mind. Fords avg. cost for each hourly employee is currently $112,000 and will go up again with a new contract. Over $6 billion a year currently. On the other hand average salaried employees get $96,000 and cost Ford $2.7 billion a year, keep in mind Ford also has about 60,000 retired employees at an average of $147, 000 an additional $8.8 billion added to labor costs. That is almost $15 billion in labor costs per year. Many salaried folks are college grads and make less than the guy that puts "4 bolts on a car as is come by", no advanced education and almost an unskilled job. My Ford assembly plant retired uncle used to make us laugh at his statement of "4 bolts a car then 3 minutes talking with the guys and then 4 more bolts". In other words he worked about 15 minute an hour or 2 hours a day and with his pension and 401K he made more after he retired than working; same thing today, retired employees cost Ford more than current employees. Auto union workers are already making more the the salaried employees, and some think we should cut the lower earning wages to supplement the union workers, LOL! Any salaried cuts will be at the hiring level not current employees and not exec's. So lets not hurt the lowest paid folks to add to the pockets of the highest paid employee group. The union companies are at a $9.00 an hour disadvantage in just wages not counting benefits compared to non-union cars. Add benefits and that is probably closer to $15.00 and hour. I wish the big 3 would get together and walk away from the UAW and bring car prices down. I was Union, my wife retired with 45 years with a Union job but the UAW has ALWAYS made very high pay and benefits are now out of control and will price themselves out of jobs. I see more Mexican assembly plants and robots in Fords future. Ok with me, I love my Mexican made FiST.
BTW, out of curiosity I did some research on the subject and the numbers above are from reliable sources on the internet, almost all news to me. I would have bet the engineers and programmers would be higher paid than assembly line workers and lost. Then I thought how dangerous the job may be and found many other industries have higher accident rates and are not earning close to what UAW workers get and are not compensate as highly as UAW worker out from injuries. I believe the UAW has always been over compensated but has exceeded its worth to the big 3.
