Ford Ranger/UAW progress-to-date 11/9/15:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/11/09/ford-uaw-ranger/75473664/
United Auto Workers union leaders signed off on a tentative agreement with Ford on Monday that would deliver $10,000 in signing bonuses to every worker and $9 billion in new U.S. product investments, retaining or creating 8,500 jobs.
Now it is time for the members to vote.
The new-product investments include a commitment by Ford to bring its Ranger midsize pickup back to America and to revive the storied Bronco nameplate. Both would be built at the Michigan Assembly Plant which will stop making the Ford Focus and C-Max families of vehicles there in 2018.
Production of the Bronco is expected to start after the Ranger and no later than 2020, according to a person briefed on the agreement who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Ranger will enter a revived field of smaller pickups while the Bronco, known to off-roaders from the 1960s, would likely be aimed at the four-wheel-drive, dirt trail-ready market.
"It is one of the richest agreements in the history of UAW-Ford," UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said Friday in announcing the new pact.
Settles and UAW President Dennis Williams briefed several hundred Ford elected leaders Monday at the UAW-Ford National Program Center in Detroit on the details of the deal. Now that the national council has approved the agreement, it will be sent to the union's 52,900 Ford members for ratification. Voting is expected to take at least a week.
Ford workers will be eligible for about $8,500 in signing bonuses as well as other goodies including profit sharing, a $1,500 annual inflation protection bonus and possible $250 annual competitiveness bonus, according to people familiar with the deal.
Additionally, $1,500 of the profit sharing amount due would be pulled ahead so that workers would get a tidy $10,000 upon ratification.
The agreement also includes:
•$70,000 retirement bonuses for select production and skilled trades workers. Timing must still be determined.
•Commitment to add up to 1,200 skilled trades apprentices
•$9 billion in total investment commitments to create or retain 8,500 jobs
•Same raises offered to long-time General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles workers: 3% raises in the first and third years and 4% lump sum bonuses in the second and fourth years.
•Path to bring entry-level workers to the full wage scale within eight years and they receive the same health care as traditional workers.
•Profit sharing continues to follow the current formula but there would no longer be a cap on the amount workers could get which could prove to be sizable in this red-hot North American market.
•Retirees get $1,000 in four annual $250 cash payments or gift cards. Surviving spouses get a total of $500 over the four years in $125 annual payments. They also can use the revived Legal Services Plan.
•A $2,000 signing bonus for temporary employees with at least 90 days on the job.
•Temporary workers already employed by Ford will make $17 to $22.50 per hour, depending on the number of years with the company.
•New temporary workers will start at $15.78 per hour and progress to $19.28 after four years.
•UAW maintained restrictions on the usage of temporary workers.
"Jimmy Settles is a seasoned negotiator," said Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research. "He knows what will pass and what members want. He's got respect and understands that the priorities are jobs."
The Ford agreement is the third national contract the UAW has reached this year with the Detroit Three. An agreement reached last month with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was ratified last month. An agreement with General Motors was ratified by production workers but rejected by skilled trades workers.
The UAW is also holding meetings at plants across the country today to determine why 59.5% of GM's skilled trades workers voted no while 58.3% of production workers voted in favor.
