I heard last week that Ford-Chicago had rejected their initial contract 2 to 1. Didn't sound good for Ford. When the GM lawsuit against FCA was mentioned today, it was also mentioned that Ford had ratified their agreement. NO press coverage?
Considering that the UAW came out from GM, their relationship has typically been contentious. Except in the '80s when GM was making money and paying good dividends each quarter.
I remember in the '90s, when Chrysler was running all plants three shifts, even having to produce some car-orders into the next model year. The average Chrysler employee's profit sharing check was about $9K. Close to the same time, Ford was paying all expenses for existing workers to move to their F-250 plant in KY, to help keep up with demand for those F-series trucks. At the same time, GM was closing plants (over-capacity for their declining sales) and the GM workers might have gotten $900 profit sharing checks.
End result, Ford and Chrysler have typically had better relationships with the UAW than GM has. There's always been a lot of back and forth in the negotiations. Each side posturing to be working for "their side" against the "unreasonable demands" of the other side. That's to be expected.
Of course, after the FCA operatives had seen what Ford did/got, after the lengthy GM situation, it would be to THEIR advantage to do what they could to help things along. FCA typically is the one least capable of really fighting the UAW on anything. Better to be friends than enemies, if possible!
While the GM contract set the stage for Ford and FCA, I also suspect that Ford and FCA tweaked the basic deal to better fit their respective employees. I applaud Ford and FCA for not putting their dealership people through what we are still dealing with in GM Parts! NOT to forget the latent issues at the Pontiac (MI) Parts Plant (where all vendor-produced parts are packaged into GM bags and boxes. That "issue" happened due to a change to the pick-ticket labels, from an easy to read item to an overly-complicated "New and Better" version).
Personally, I feel that GM can cry "FOUL!" all they want as THEY could have done their deal sooner than later, IF they'd really wanted to. By observation, GM has a history of doing a few things "right", but also a history of not building on those particular "right decisions" as things progress into the future. It has seemed that after the "right moves", they reward the particular team(s) by disbursing them to other areas, rather than keeping them intact to keep the momentum going. BTAIM . . .
Just some thoughts and observations,
CBODY67
