Ford seeks to avoid giving rivals labor advantage

• Source: Gasgoo.com
• [16:54 September 11 2009]
• Comments

Ford Motor Co., the only major US automaker to stay out of bankruptcy, said it's talking with the United Auto Workers to avoid being put at a long-term labor-cost disadvantage to General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

"In the near term, there is not a cost disadvantage," Joe Hinrichs, group vice president of global manufacturing and labor affairs, told analysts today at a Credit Suisse conference in New York. "We have a long, proud history of working with the UAW to reduce our costs and keep ourselves competitive and we intend to keep doing that."

Ford's negotiations with the union follow concessions granted to GM and Chrysler earlier this year while those companies were reorganizing with US government aid. The UAW has been reluctant to provide more givebacks to Ford after ceding annual bonuses and cost-of-living increases and accepting reduced layoff benefits in March.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based company has said those changes would save $500 million a year.

Hinrichs today declined to give details of Ford's current talks with the union. The UAW in agreements with GM and Chrysler accepted a six-year pay freeze for entry-level employees, a no- strike accord until 2015 and fewer job classifications.

Ford trimmed US hourly employment to 41,000 workers as of July 30, about a 50 percent reduction from 2005, and closed a third of its assembly plants, he said. The company has lowered its fixed costs by $14 billion to $15 billion, he said.

(Bloomberg)