Ford Chair Bill Ford stepped out of the background Monday morning to use his stature as the auto industry’s longest-serving top executive – and his long personal relationships with many United Auto Workers leaders at Ford – to try to break the labor deadlock that is costing his company an estimated $44 million a day.
Ford covered a lot of ground during a talk staged at the automaker’s historic Rouge assembly complex. The core of the message he sent to UAW President Shawn Fain – and over his head to Ford’s UAW workers – was this: “Toyota, Honda, Tesla and others are loving this strike because they know the longer it goes on, the better it is for them.” (His full prepared remarks are here.)
General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares will speak for themselves, but they’d likely agree with Bill Ford on that point.
The strikes are stressful for UAW members. Ford and Stellantis furloughed more workers late last week, saying their operations have run out of work because the assembly plants they supply are shut down by walkouts.
Even so, well under half of the 150,000 UAW workers at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis are on strike as of midday Monday. Fain still has capacity to escalate, and has said more strikes could come at any moment if automakers don’t “pony up.”
The UAW’s 32-day campaign of targeted strikes also is putting pressure on the Detroit Three automakers’ long-term investment plans, and raising doubts about promises they have made to return more cash to shareholders.
Fain told Ford last week to “go get the big checkbook” if it wants to end the strike. With no Super Duty Ford trucks rolling off assembly lines, Bill Ford’s checkbook is getting smaller by the day.
