LOUISVILLLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The United Auto Workers union and Ford Motor Co. reached an agreement Wednesday to resolve issues at Louisville’s Kentucky Truck Plant, averting a strike the union had threatened last week.
The tentative agreement, which must still be ratified by union workers at the plant, satisfies union demands surrounding health and safety, the availability of nurses and the treatment of skilled trades workers, said Jon Jaggers, UAW Local 862 building chairman at Kentucky Truck Plant.
“The company was willing to move on those issues,” Jaggers told WDRB News.
Jaggers declined to share specific details of the agreement. The union plans sessions to explain the details to Kentucky Truck workers ahead of a ratification vote.
Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch said the company is “pleased” to reach a deal at Kentucky Truck, where Ford plans to launch new iterations of the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs this year.
The UAW threatened last week to walk its nearly 9,000 hourly members at Kentucky Truck off the job starting Friday, saying the union and company were at odds over the local agreement that covers plant-specific terms.
Kentucky Truck, which makes F-Series Super Duty pickups in addition to the SUVs, is Ford’s largest North American plant and huge source of profits for the automaker.
The plant alone generates about $25 billion in annual revenue for Ford, the automaker said last year. In 2023, 384,028 vehicles rolled off the lines at Kentucky Truck — most of them Super Duty pickups, according to Ford statistics.
The UAW’s strike of Kentucky Truck last October was considered a bare-knuckled move that helped the union reach a rich, four-year labor deal with the automaker.
The strike also marked a change in the company’s historically good relations with the union and has Ford “think(ing) carefully” about its U.S.-heavy factory footprint, Ford CEO Jim Farley said during an investor conference earlier this month.
Ford and the UAW reached an agreement on national terms such as wages, healthcare coverage and retirement contributions last fall. But there are still 19 unresolved local contracts, of 61 in total, covering location-specific issues at plants and other Ford facilities, the union said last week.
The pendency of those local agreements does not delay wage increases, bonuses, a retirement buyout for eligible workers and other terms of the national contract.
Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862, told WDRB News last week that he had never seen a strike over a plant-specific agreement in his 30 years, and that he was confident with the UAW would not need to follow through on its threat.
Ford’s other Louisville plant, Louisville Assembly off Fern Valley Road, finalized its local agreement in January, the top union official at the plant said last week.
