UAW Leaders Get Briefed on New Ford Contract
By Michelle Krebs November 5, 2007Leaders from UAW locals from around the country are gathering in Detroit Monday to be briefed on the tentative contract reached between its union and Ford.
Contract details have not been officially but the Ford deal reportedly has significant job security assurances, including Fordâs removal of several plants from its pending closure list in exchange for significant, but still unknown, concessions from the union.
It would seem that Ford will be challenged to meet its profitability objectives without the ability to close plants in line with its shrinking sales and market share.
Otherwise, the contract is believed to contain the same elements as the contracts with General Motors and Chrysler, including a union-run trust fund for retiree health care and a two-tier wage system.
The contract is expected to be easily ratified by Ford workers in votes that will occur over the coming weeks.
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Finally! The contract is out and obviously needs to be approved. As a QOSC at a Stamping facility I'ev watched our plant make tremendous strides in the quality area. QOSCs work to provide coaching and counseling in process. When people at our plant work one of the first things they think of is safety first, but for years the Q1 flag flew outside over our plant and not much thought was devoted to it. Now employees think in terms of how do I improve upon our products, how do I satisfy our customers needs. Many of the supervisors as well as the general workforce have bought into the idea that on a day in and day out basis they will be audited by the QOSCs on their quality practices. At our plant supervisors never had been graded in their yearly reviews in this area, now they are. If I'm not mistaken Quality makes up 1/3 of their overall performance review. In other words, don't make the junk and pass it along hoping that some other guy will fix it. As a QOSC I attend monthly control plant meetings. At these meetings we are the vendor and who we supply are the assembly plants. At these meeting we must answer to form-26s which are no more than customer concerns. What happens is we must improve the condition of parts missing components such as nuts or screws, etc. Sometimes the material is shipped with other defects likes bent corners or dimensionally out of spec conditions, these issues are addressed at these meetings and permanant corrective actions must be done. In a nut shell teams from our plant work together improving our product resulting in better approval ratings. JD Powers and Consumer Reports have both recognized this, and our new contract has language that specifies the efforts of the people at our plant as well as the efforts of the QOSCs. I think in such a competative world, especially the auto industry, it's good to see such landmark achievements made by the people that work on the floor and at mid-level. Hopefully this contract will pass by it's membership.
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