Wednesday’s walkout brings the total number of striking UAW workers at the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — to about 33,700, or roughly 22 percent of the union’s workers at the Detroit automakers.
The Kentucky plant is Ford’s largest in the world, building the company’s profitable F-series Super Duty Trucks, as well as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. Its production generates annual sales of $25 billion, according to Ford.
“We have been crystal clear, and we have waited long enough, but Ford has not gotten the message,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It’s time for a fair contract at Ford and the rest of the Big Three. If they can’t understand that after four weeks, the 8,700 workers shutting down this extremely profitable plant will help them understand it.”
Ford in a statement called the decision “grossly irresponsible but unsurprising given the union leadership’s stated strategy of keeping the Detroit 3 wounded for months through ‘reputational damage’ and ‘industrial chaos.’”
The company called its current proposal to the union, including a 23 percent wage increase over four years, an “outstanding offer that would make a meaningful positive difference in the quality of life for our 57,000 UAW-represented workers, who are already among the best compensated hourly manufacturing workers anywhere in the world.”