LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Employees at Ford’s two Louisville car vegetation voted in opposition to the proposed UAW contract by means of a 52-to-48 margin, bucking the nationwide development to this point.UAW figures display 5,766 Kentucky Truck Plant and Louisville Meeting Plant employees voted Sunday on the Galt Area resort in downtown Louisville. There are about 12,000 UAW employees between town’s two vegetation, even though it wasn’t in an instant transparent precisely what number of had been eligible to forged a poll.The inclusion of the Louisville votes lowers the total proportion of UAW participants in choose of the deal to 65%, from about 70% earlier than Sunday, in step with a UAW spreadsheet monitoring the vote.UAW Native 862 President Todd Dunn mentioned the contract nonetheless turns out more likely to exceed the nationwide majority had to put the deal in position.”I suppose the settlement might be ratified primarily based upon the numbers and the knowledge that is there,” he mentioned.Louisville employees have a well-documented historical past of taking a detrimental tack on proposed Ford offers.Native 862 manufacturing employees — the principle crew — voted 55% in opposition to the 2023 settlement. However their opposition was once within the 60s in all the way through the 2019 and 2015 contract votes. Employees interviewed after casting their ballots Sunday had more than a few critiques at the deal.China Jones, a 23-year employee at Louisville Meeting Plant, mentioned the agreed 25% salary build up over the lifetime of the four-year contract simply restores wages to the place they’d be had employees no longer agreed to a myriad of concessions all the way through the Nice Recession. She voted ‘No.’“Older veterans like us made the sacrifices for them (the automakers),” she mentioned. “And we don’t get not anything out of it.”Extra CoverageChris Eire, a Louisville Meeting Plant employee employed in 2012, mentioned many long-tenured employees sought after a larger in advance salary hike than the 11% promised within the deal.”There is numerous individuals who’s gonna vote no. The retirees now and those which might be gonna retire inside the contract (cycle) aren’t getting anything else in any respect,” he mentioned. Eire declined to mention how he voted.Antonio Rodriguez, a 20-year-old line employee in his 3rd 12 months at Kentucky Truck Plant, supported the deal.The deal introduced Oct. 25 guarantees speedy 11% pay raises for auto employees, rising to twenty-five% over the lifetime of the four-year deal, that means an ordinary salary of greater than $40 consistent with hour by means of 2027. More youthful employees like Rodriguez will get pleasure from an speeded up trail from access to plain wages: 3 years as an alternative of 8.Employees employed after 2007 also are set for a large spice up in retirement pay — 10% of wages, up from the present 6.4% — even though the UAW failed to revive conventional defined-benefit pensions for post-2007 employees.“It could were great however numerous puts misplaced pensions,” Rodriguez mentioned. “I didn’t be expecting us to get that again.”
Ford Kentucky Truck Plant employees Tamekya Barbour, left, and her brother-in-law Travis Klotz on the UAW Native 862 contract ratification vote on Nov. 12, 2023 on the Galt Area resort in Louisville. Barbour and Klotz mentioned they voted ‘no’ at the deal.
Chris Otts, WDRB Information
However for Kentucky Truck Plant employee Tamekya Barbour, a standard pension remains to be price combating for. She voted no to the deal.Barbour, 43, mentioned she expects to retire from Ford.”I simply really feel like a bit bit extra balance in retirement could be nice for all folks,” mentioned Barbour, who joined Kentucky Truck 8 years in the past.Any other union objective was once to revive company-paid medical insurance for retirees, which was once closed off to these employed after 2007. As a substitute, retirees are dur for annual bills of $500.Travis Klotz, a 10-year employee at Kentucky Truck Plant, mentioned he voted in opposition to the deal as a result of the loss of retiree healthcare.”We do not get anything else; you simply principally give up, just about,” he mentioned.“I think like this contract — it could actually lend a hand numerous other folks simply now coming in. It provides the more moderen other folks like me a reason why to come back to Ford,” he mentioned.Joshua Jordan, a Louisville Meeting Plant employee who is been at the activity 3 years, voted for the deal, announcing he did not suppose the union may extract any more positive aspects from Ford.”I am assured that our president did not go away one thing at the desk for us,” he mentioned.
