Union members at Ford Motor approved a tentative agreement Friday, concluding contentious contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and Detroit automakers.
UAW-Ford workers were the final group among automakers to ratify their agreement, following General Motors workers who narrowly approved their pact on Thursday, and Stellantis workers who supported their deal. Preliminary vote results, released by the union on Friday, indicated that the Ford deal received backing from 68.2% of the nearly 35,000 autoworkers at Ford who participated in the vote. Though some smaller facilities were yet to finalize voting, the number of employees at those locations was insufficient to counterbalance the more than 12,600-vote margin.
As of early Friday afternoon, every local UAW chapter representing Ford plants, with the exception of a small parts facility in Florida and the Kentucky Truck Plant, had voted in favor of the agreement. The decisive push for ratification came from the Dearborn Truck Plant in Michigan, where approximately 2,700 members voted in support of the deal by 78.7%, as reported by the union’s vote tracker.
Both Ford and the UAW had not responded to requests for comment at the time of reporting.
These contract ratifications concluded several weeks after tentative deals were reached between the automakers and the union, ending around six weeks of targeted strikes by the UAW. The strikes, commencing on September 15, involved staged work stoppages escalating from plant to plant as a strategy to increase pressure on the automakers. a tentative agreement
Preliminary results at Stellantis indicated 68.4% support from hourly workers, while at GM, the approval rate was 54.7%. GM’s closer vote was influenced in part by the demographics of the company’s workforce, with the highest percentage of traditional workers compared to its crosstown rivals. This group expressed dissatisfaction with wage increases relative to newer hires, as well as concerns about pension contributions and retirement benefits.
Despite these concerns, the agreements mark a record-setting achievement for the union, which adopted a more confrontational and strategic approach during the negotiations, as promised by UAW President Shawn Fain, who assumed leadership in March.