cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/830212
The absolutely beautiful reason that I can tell that they still aren’t agreeing to Fords concessions is because they in solidarity with new workers that don’t even exist yet, are demanding that Fords new battery plants they are building be placed under the same labor agreement they are fighting for.
“The UAW, according to Ford officials, has taken a hard line on requiring the company’s four new battery plants be placed under the terms of the labor agreement.”
That’s a great idea in an economy with low unemployment let’s fire everyone, surely the workers will be easily replaced.
And surely there won’t be a drastic drop in quality when they hire too few workers who have no experience. This will mean delays and recalls on purchases.
It’s Ford. How much lower can the quality go?
They could start pre-rusting the fenders!
GM
No CarPlay or Android Auto.
Wait —they’re actually doing that
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Dodge was right there.
Or worse: Stellantis
As much as I like to shit on GM and their poor designs I don’t know that I would place them under Ford.
I’d agree but it’s close. The transmissions in fiesta’s and the 3k water pump jobs on the v6’s put them under GM in my book. They both have timing chain issues, but you can at least easily change the waterpumps on the v6 gms.
Maybe they’re committed to F.O.R.D. - Fix or Repair daily.
That’s Fiat Dale
Found On Road Dead
Pinto quality.
Probably still better than the Escape and Fiesta put together quality.
Didn’t the last company that tried this have to shut down factories due to scabs wrecking it thru lack of training?
EDIT: Yep, it was Kellog’s & they totally lost that battle.
Would be a shame if some “scabs” “without training” “accidentally” destroyed the factory
Sometimes I can be so “clumsy” with my bags of sand and metal filings around expensive machinery. Can’t break tradition though. Gotta always have my bags of lucky dust.
Aw man, I dropped my bag of thermite and accidentally lit it on fire
Oh shit, was that your lucky bag?
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Institutionalknowledgesayswhat?
Are those recalls gonna happen next quarter? No?
Then they don’t care.
Yeah. If this goes through don’t even touch a Ford vehicle from the years 2024-2026 at least. Will be full of defects.
Ford has the most recalls of any automaker in the US the last like three years running though. So maybe don’t buy a new ford from anytime in the last like 5 years either.
Though, proportionally, Tesla has the most, by a large margin.
I don’t know how Ford does things, but if your process is well documented and controlled new workers can produce just as good a quality. The biggest problem should be just how slow. I can put new wipers on a car - or whatever it is each person is doing, but someone with experience can do things much faster.
And if you rush them, then things go wrong in a hurry. It doesn’t matter how much documentation you have if the operator skips steps or plain old makes a mistake.
I’ve personally blown up thousands of dollars in tooling making stupid mistakes when I was a junior machinist being told we had deadlines to meet. I’ve seen other guys forget to probe a work offset and crash the machine so badly it needs a spindle rebuild. A press operator can wreck a $100,000 die set if they make even relatively easy mistakes, and if that happens to the wrong tool, it can completely shut down production for months for a repair or rebuild.
If there’s a 1 in a million chance that any of those 10,000 employees makes a big, showstopping mistake on a given day, then after 100 days, there’s a 63% chance of that event happening.
Correct, but not that the union people all has to learn things at some point. Ford has to train several hundred new people every year anyway.
“Several hundred” is two orders of magnitude less than 10,000.
Seriously, this sounds like pure negligence. These are multi-thousand pound killing machines. How many safety lawsuits will come out of this?
If they do not equal or exceed profits, it’s just the cost of doing business.
Workers are, after all, fungible
If Ford fires workers, that’s a no from me on purchasing any vehicles from them in the future.
I’d rather pay a 2 thousand dollar premium on a new vehicle that’s union made than pay 2 thousand dollars less for a shoddy piece of crap made by inexperienced and overworked / underpaid workers.
I’d rather walk than ever buy another American vehicle anyhow, they’re fucking trash. Japanese for the rest of my life, no looking back at years wasted on American garbage.
Ever since GM killed SAAB, I get Subaru. Admittedly, I currently own a Bolt, but the second Subaru makes an electric Impreza, I’m getting one.
I’ve had a couple of both country’s vehicles over the years. Honestly, they’ve all been pretty good. I can certainly see myself boycotting American vehicles for the rest of my life depending on how this shakes out.
Hate to break it to you but Japanese work culture and abuse is significantly worse than the US.
I can’t imagine how that has anything to do with what I’m saying. I need dependable reliable transportation, that doesn’t seem to be something American vehicle makers can make happen, but the Japanese seem more than happy to take up the slack. I hope everyone gets better workplace environments, but that’s unrelated.
Seems logical, I wonder what percentage of people share that opinion. For instance I would in general trust a package with UPS more than Fed Ex.
Exactly, I strongly prefer UPS as a delivery service (I can’t tell you the last time I intentionally used fedex). I actually trust USPS more than fedex, frankly.
FedEx has messed up deliveries the last several times I’ve used them. Either things are broken, or they sneak up to the door and leave a notice that they missed you without ever ringing the bell and then run off. That last one is really weird. They’re already there, what’s the point of this? I’ve seen them on camera walk up, put the sticker on the door, and leave. No package in hand, no knock, and no doorbell ring. Why!
Maybe its faster for them. Like they don’t want to wait for someone to get their pants and finally get to the door, or they assume no one is home and just want to get on with the next delivery. At the same time the fedex system shows that they made the visit to your home and that is good enough for their boss. I really don’t know but that’s my theory, perhaps a fedexer will enlighten us.
Wait… FedEx or FedEx Ground? Maybe it’s because I’m in Canada but I’ve never had a good experience with UPS or any of its drivers. While FedEx has been nothing but amazing.
FedEx Ground however is a steaming pile of shit
EV’s require fewer assembly steps. The unions want to transition losses on the assembly lines to new jobs at battery manufacturing ops the ev builders will make. EV builders don’t want to have union shops at every level.
They’d rather dump the unnecessary people and hire non-union workers instead.
Follow the money.
While I support your sentiment, non-union does not necessarily equal poorly made. It just means those products are more cheaply made by undercutting wages and benefits everywhere. Supporting union work is a monetary rising tide that lifts all boats, from the local economy, better health, to generational income that supports a better future for the families who get it.
Ford: We got the cash but we’d rather shoot ourselves in the foot and cut off a leg. Those MBA jerks running the companies are morons.
Let me start by saying i agree with you. I’d like to add that nowhere in my academic journey through a state accredited business college did they teach us that the goal of business is to screw workers. That shit is taught by sociopaths to other sociopaths in the corporate world. Fuck em all.
I dunno man, I had a management professor raise an argument that a publicly traded business had only one function, and that was to provide value to its shareholders. Anything else, such as charitable donations, could be considered stealing from its shareholders - unless it provided a return on investment (e.g. a charitable donation provided good PR which caused more people to buy your product).
I don’t think the professor truly believed the argument he was making, but more presenting it as a “this is how many successful businesses operate and how they justify it”.
It’s actually Supreme Court precedent that will allow shareholders to sue if a public company doesn’t choose the most profitable way of doing business.
So in a public corporation, they have to choose the most evil way of doing business.
That’s not the case and it’s definitely not so simple; here’s a short read on why:
Interesting read, I definitely held the opposite opinion previously. No idea where I first heard it, but it’s one of these “easy to grasp, difficult to let go” ideas.
See also “alpha males”, which is also total BS, but often repeated.
Seems like an idea that these corps would love to spread. “Oh sorry, we just have to be evil because of those dang shareholders and regulations and such, you know we’d love to be completely benevolent but our hands are tied.”
Thank you for sharing this, I heard that justification so many times I had taken it for fact.
I’ll second this, from someone with a MBA as well. While it’s technically the end goal is to provide a return on investment to shareholders, if you’re a publicly traded company. There are also B corps as well nowadays, which seek to give back to the greater world. The problem with capitalism, is that, in theory, it acts like a parasite, when it SHOULD be acting like a symbiotic entity. Short term gains are never sustainable, big picture should be the top priority. Part of the reason why I love small business and non profits, they try and live in harmony with their neighbors, in theory.
I legitimately believe, in my heart of hearts, that people will business degrees more than anyone else have ruined this world.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch
That one in particular, in my estimation.
Yes what a bastard. Destroyed the silent agreement between management and workers and inevitably the middle class one day
Couldn’t agree more. This man has done so much damage to humanity and the Earth.
Why do you even have a rank ordered list of who ruined the world?
Watch me predict the future… “Consumer Reports cites high recall and defect incidence in 2025-2030 model Ford vehicles.”
Good on the workers! Solidarity with the people! ✊
“If there was hope, it must lie in the Proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated.”
Context? I’m not familiar with the quote.
Please go read 1984.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’m familiar with Orwell and read Animal farm in school, but hadn’t read 1984 yet.
It’s a quote from the book 1984 by George Orwell
Sounds like the UAW is going to declare a full strike across all unionized Ford plants.
Also sounds like a good way to piss off local government. Fire ~5k people per city? That’s probably pretty impactful for those cities.
Bryce Currie, Ford’s vice president of manufacturing in the Americas, said the company anticipates nine of those 13 plants will have to lay off as many as 4,600 workers in total over the coming weeks, with the first layoffs happening in a matter of days.
“I want to stress, this will be a prolonged impact. Even if the strike is short-lived, it will have a prolonged impact, because bringing a plant back up is much more intensive than putting it down,” Currie explained in an Oct. 12 media call.
Kentucky Truck makes F-series Super Duty pickups as well as Ford Expedition SUVs and Lincoln Navigator SUVs. It generates $25 billion in annual revenue, or 16% of Ford’s annual global revenue, and produces a vehicle every 37 seconds.
Sounds like the VP understands that this is going to cost them a large amount. Also sounds like he isn’t 100% on board with it, but time and actions will tell.
I wouldn’t be either, There is no way they are going to be able to replace 5,000 auto workers easily. Anyone who has ever taking their car to a mechanic will know what I mean.
The corpus would rather cut off its arm than provide it with enough bloodflow to keep it healthy.
Right because there’s no benefit to having the parts of your company be healthy
I wouldn’t be either, There is no way they are going to be able to replace 5,000 auto workers easily. Anyone who has ever taking their car to a mechanic will know what I mean.
Wait 'til you see my IAM brothers making airplanes.
It is illegal under federal law to fire workers for striking. Mass layoffs like this were likely already something they were planning and they’re just using the strike as an excuse to make it seem less like it’s just the naked corporate greed that it really is.
It would be very illegal for them to continually keep these plans around as a strike response.
Not as a strike response. I’m saying they likely had recent plans to just lay people off for financial reasons and the strike became an excuse to blame that on.
The workers being laid off are not the ones striking.
I’m referring to the title of this post
I support the protests and UAW but I don’t see in the article that suggests Ford is moving to fire these workers. Perhaps I missed it?
They’re not. They’re firing non-union workers in other plants up and downstream of this one, due to the lack of demand for those other plants’ outputs
Try clicking through to the article?
Is this not the same article? I see them mentioning laying off 4.6k workers across all plants but not specifically this one. Its my understanding too these layoffs are non strikers because the plant cannot operate. I also thought there were somekind of penalties or contract stuff to prevent firing striking workers, I am assuming this is a protected strike. Just kinda seems like the post is misleading, esp since there is no mention about firing striking workers.
Ford officials said the work stoppage will lead to “painful aftershocks,” including full or partial layoff
Full or partial layoffs in other plants
Please forgive my ignorance here. I absolutely support folks fighting for better pay and benefits, but why on earth did they refuse this?
The company’s Oct. 3 offer featured:
- Product commitments for every UAW plant in America
- No job losses due to electric vehicle battery plants
- Profit sharing among all employees
- A full ratification bonus
- 26% pay increase for all temporary employees
- Conversion of all temporary employees with at least three months of service to permanent status
- More than 20% pay increase for permanent employees
- Inflation protection in cost-of-living allowances
- End to tiered pay so all employees can reach the top wage rate
- A reduction (in half) of the time it takes to earn the top wage
- Income protection for permanent employees
- Increased 401(k) contributions for permanent employees
- Up to five weeks paid vacation, an average of 17 paid holidays per year and two family days.
Every single one of those bullet points sounds like a pretty massive win, even individually, then you combine them all together and it’s the best benefit plan I’ve ever even heard of in the US. Granted, I am not a benefits manager and never have been, so I suppose I don’t know what is generally available in the US. But many of those individual benefits are leagues above anything I’ve ever seen.
EDIT: I read the article rather than the post. So I assume the above points are not being given to plants planning to be built?
Yeah, near the end of the article they mention that the union won’t agree until the new battery plants will also be included in this CA.
I’ve already said fuck Ford as they made their vehicles harder to work on yourself. Fuck each and every auto company. We should be past electric vehicles and using magnetic propulsion, but they have to make sure their profits aren’t negatively affected.
what is an electric motor if not magnetic propulsion?
Wouldn’t that require new infrastructure?
Like maglev?
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All the $15/hr u wanna make.
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On what planet is making cars a minimum wage job? What are you talking about? Lol.
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I work at a Dr office near a Ford plant. We see a lot of injured employees specifically because a decent chunk of each car is still put together by hand.
Ford throwing off the burden of the UAW would be a huge win for consumers. Fords might actually be built well for once, and they’d be cheaper.
Your mom is cheaper.
Consumers ARE working class people, you know that, right? Unions improve conditions across the board for working class people by creating competitive pressure to increase wages and improve working conditions. Unions are good for consumers.
Unions are good for consumers.
In theory, I agree. In practice that’s not the actual result.
*citation needed lmao
Oh wait, here you go:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880255/
https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-and-well-being/
Unions are good for the public WHO ARE CONSUMERS, you muppet.
What are you basing that belief on? There is no evidence to back that up, unions have been shown to benefit workers and consumers time and time again.
