The United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday, averting a strike from roughly 9,000 workers at the automaker’s Kentucky truck plant.
The Louisville plant — where workers assemble the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Super Duty trucks — is Ford’s largest and most profitable in the U.S. Workers were set to walk off the job on Friday after five months of negotiations failed to produce a local contract between the UAW and Ford.
Local contracts usually provide essential guidelines on specific issues at individual facilities, in addition to the deals outlined in the national agreement between unions and corporations. The UAW’s 57,000 members employed by Ford ratified a new contract with the automaker in November, officially ending weeks of strikes.
The autoworkers union said that Wednesday’s tentative deal addressed issues related to health, safety, and skilled trades jobs at Kentucky Truck. In a statement, the UAW added that “dozens” of locals have not yet reached agreements with members of the Big Three carmakers — Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.
The union had issued a strike warning last week, just one day after Ford CEO Jim Farley suggested the automaker may reconsider keeping its truck manufacturing entirely in the U.S. Farley pointed to the nearly $2 billion in losses the UAW’s strikes cost the company last year and the union’s decision to strike Kentucky Truck last October. At the time, Ford said the plant generated some $25 billion in revenue per year.
“We make 100% of our trucks with UAW workers in the U.S.,” Farley said at the Wolfe Research Semiconductor Conference on Feb. 15. “Our competitors do not do that. They went through bankruptcy and they moved production to Mexico and other places. And so it’s always been a cost for us, and we always thought it was the right kind of cost.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Ford said it was pleased to have reached an agreement with UAW Local 862, which represents workers at Kentucky Truck and its Louisville assembly plant. Notably, in November, a majority of the local’s members voted against the UAW’s master contract with Ford.