Workers at Two Major Ford Factories Reject Labor Pact

The United Auto Workers' effort to ratify a new labor deal with Ford Motor Co. suffered a significant blow with two major factories in Kentucky rejecting the agreement by a roughly two-thirds majority.

While voting isn't set to conclude until Friday, the two factories have a total of 9,400 Ford workers, enough to cast doubt over whether UAW leaders will be able to win adequate membership support to ratify this latest contract.

At other plants, results have been mixed, according to tallies provided to The Wall Street Journal.

Workers at several smaller components factories and two major assembly plants have approved the deal, while four other plants, including Ford's 7,500-worker truck factory in Kansas City, have voted to reject the contract. The Ford-UAW agreement covers 52,900 U.S. workers at the auto maker.

UAW President Dennis Williams is under intense pressure to get the Ford agreement ratified after running into resistance getting contract proposals at General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV approved by the rank-and-file. It took two rounds of bargaining at Fiat Chrysler to strike a deal that members would ratify. GM's ratification vote is on hold after a smaller group of skilled trade workers rejected the deal earlier this month.

The UAW's top bargainer for Ford, Jimmy Settles, has taken the unusual step of calling a news conference Wednesday in Dearborn, Mich., hoping to sway workers to vote in favor of the proposed contract. The contract secures $9 billion in new investment for Ford's U.S. factories and offers workers $10,000 in upfront signing and profit-sharing bonuses.

Dearborn is home to one of the UAW's largest union chapters, representing about 6,500 workers at three Ford plants.

Several workers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal say the Ford proposal doesn't go far enough to roll back concessions agreed to by the union to help the no. 2 U.S. auto maker survive in times of financial distress. One of the biggest sticking points is that the proposal doesn't close a $9-an-hour pay gap between entry-level and veteran workers within the course of the agreement, these workers say.

Write to Christina Rogers at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 18, 2015 10:55 ET (15:55 GMT)

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