LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville-area UAW members are typically a tough sell on national labor deals with Ford Motor Co. — a pattern that bore out Sunday when the members of UAW Local 862 voted 52% against the proposed 2023 agreement.
But the Louisville workers’ dissention had a muted impact on the national tally, as a significantly smaller share of local workers came out to vote than in previous years.
UAW Local 862 recorded 5,766 votes on Sunday, indicating less than half of the roughly 12,000 hourly workers at Kentucky Truck Plant and Louisville Assembly Plant cast ballots on the 2023 contract.
During the previous contract ratification in 2019, the Louisville union recorded 9,190 votes, according to figures obtained by WDRB News, which Local 862’s president did not dispute.
The low turnout is surprising given that the UAW negotiations with the Big Three automakers were more contentious and better publicized than in previous years, including a historic two-week strike of Kentucky Truck Plant, Ford’s largest manufacturing site.
UAW Local 862 President Todd Dunn addresses reporters at the Kentucky Truck Plant union hall on Oct. 26, 2023
Todd Dunn, the longtime president of UAW Local 862, said the turnout may be partly due to a “complacent” attitude among workers who tacitly approve of a contract that seems likely to be ratified based on earlier voting patterns by other UAW locals.
“There was a lot of members that just felt comfortable and relaxed and just couldn’t get out and vote,” Dunn said Monday.
Louisville is one of Ford’s largest hubs, comprising about 21% of the UAW-represented hourly Ford workers nationwide. Whether the labor agreement goes into effect depends on ratification by a majority of the voting members nationally. The remaining locals will cast their ballots this week.
The impact of the Louisville vote lowered the overall share of UAW workers who favor the deal to about 65%, from 70% previously, according to a UAW vote-tracker.
One high-ranking official in the Louisville UAW said the local could have done more to ease voting for members.
Louisville-area Ford workers cast their votes on the UAW contract deal on Nov. 12, 2023 at the Galt House. By Chris Otts, WDRB News
Brandon Reisinger, the top Local 862 official at Louisville Assembly Plant, told WDRB News he raised concerns about the 12-hour voting window Sunday and “inconvenient” location at the Galt House hotel downtown.
“I heard concerns from members: ‘I never go downtown. I don’t know my way around down there,’” Reisinger said.
In 2019, Kentucky Truck and Louisville Assembly members voted over two weekdays at their respective union halls near their plants.
But the Kentucky Truck union hall proved to be a “dangerous” location because of traffic congestion and accidents along Chamberlain Lane, and now has 90 fewer parking spaces than in 2019, Dunn said.
Dunn added that the union has had national contract votes in centralized locations over the years, including downtown at the Kentucky International Convention Center and at the Kentucky Exposition Center.
He said the Galt House was the “best solution” among more than a dozen venues the union considered on a tight timeframe to complete the voting.
“I didn’t have any negative comments about the location. And the comments I had were all positive — how fast and how smooth it was,” Dunn said. “People got in and got out.”
A higher turnout among Louisville voters still may not have changed the overall picture, Reisinger said. That’s because the autoworkers who opposed the deal were more motivated to come downtown on a weekend to vote, he said.
Otherwise, he said, “The more moderate voters would have turned out and we probably would have approved it.”
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