Ford lays off 600 staff at Michigan plant after strike that’s seen 13,000 workers from Big Three car makers walk out over 40% pay rise demand – as GM boss defends her $30M salary

Ford laid off 600 workers at its Michigan plant on Friday, less than 24 hours after a historic United Auto Workers strike.

UAW union members from General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent company Stellantis stopped work at midnight Thursday, marking the first time all three have gone on strike at the same time.

Workers walked out of three factories – each one of the Big Three automakers – in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio, and those who stormed the plants were greeted with cheers from enthusiastic fellow union members.

Union leaders are seeking a 40 percent pay increase over four years, pointing out that their bosses have received similar pay increases.

Mary Barra, GM’s CEO, said Friday that unions needed to be “realistic” and defended her own $30 million salary – a 34 percent increase in four years.

“My compensation – 92 percent of it is based on the performance of the company,” she told CNN.

“If the company does well, everyone does well.”

She said critics should “look at the entire compensation package.”

Barra added, “We think we have a very competitive offer on the table, and that’s why we want to go back and get this done.”

She said GM’s team was “the best in the world” and praised them for being “resilient” but said she was “disappointed and frustrated” by the stalemate.

Barra, 61, said GM offered raises of up to 21 percent, job security and health care.

“Our team is ready to come to the table and we need UAW leadership to come back to the table so we can solve these problems and get people back to work.”

Bernie Sanders responded at a rally on Friday: “I say to Ms. Barra, do you have any idea what it’s like for one of your employees to live on $17 an hour?”

Bruce Baumhower, president of UAW Local 12 in Toledo, Ohio, said the strike was long overdue.

“One thing that drives us crazy is that we went bankrupt in 2008 and early 2009 with Barack Obama,” he said.

“And the president told us we had to give up huge concessions to get government support to get their businesses back on track. We did that. And it hasn’t been reversed.

“When we emerged from bankruptcy, our starting salary at Jeep was $15.78.

“Fifteen years later, it’s $15.78. There’s something wrong with that.’

The UAW leadership said it plans to resume negotiations Saturday.

But Ford is already feeling the impact and has laid off 600 people at their Michigan assembly plant in Wayne.

The company said the layoffs would be temporary and would affect people working in the body shop department and what it called the “southern sub-assembly area of ​​integrated stamping” – stamping is the shaping of flat sheets of metal into specific dimensions for automotive production.

“These layoffs are a result of the strike at Michigan Assembly Plant’s final assembly and painting departments because the components built by these 600 employees use materials that require e-coating for protection,” Ford said.

Ford uses E-coating – electrodeposition coating – as a means of painting and finishing the parts.

‘E-coating has been completed in the paint department, which is on strike.’

Similarly, GM told about 2,000 workers at an auto plant in Kansas that their plant would likely be closed next week due to a lack of parts, due to a nearby plant being hit.

At a rally on Friday afternoon and at picket lines during the day, union members protested loudly, taking particular aim at a two-tiered wage system in which new hires received no pay or benefits from veteran workers.

That was unfair and favored investors over employees, they said.

‘We are not going to destroy the economy. The truth is we are going to destroy the billionaires’ economy,” said UAW President Shawn Fain.

The union is demanding a bigger share of profits, shorter work weeks, restoration of promised pensions and greater job security as carmakers switch to electric vehicles.

UAW Vice President Chuck Browning, who is leading the talks with Ford, told a gathering of hundreds of UAW workers in downtown Detroit Friday afternoon that the recent talks have “made good progress, but we still have a long way to go.” ‘

Joe Biden, who describes himself as the most pro-union president in history, called on auto companies to reward workers just as executive salaries have risen.

“The companies have made some significant offers, but I think they need to go further to ensure that record corporate profits deliver record contracts,” he said.