Ford: 2-tier wages should be 'permanent solution'
 | Ford’s John Fleming: The Detroit 3’s two-tier wage system would allow “continued investment in jobs here in the U.S.” Photo credit: JOE WILSSENS |
Reprints
Print
Respond
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- The top global manufacturing executive at Ford Motor Co. said he wants the Detroit 3's two-tier wage system, in which some hourly workers earn lower pay and benefits than others, to remain in place permanently.
"I'd like to see it as a permanent solution," John Fleming, Ford's executive vice president for global manufacturing, said last week at the Management Briefing Seminars here, "because what it's allowed and what it will continue to allow is continued investment in jobs here in the U.S. It's all about competitiveness."
Fleming said he does not expect any Ford workers earning second-tier wages to be moved up to the regular pay scale until at least 2015, when the company will negotiate a new UAW contract.
Fleming's desire to keep the two-tier system indefinitely contrasts with the position of Chrysler, which says it creates an unhealthy in-plant class system. The UAW agreed to the two-tier system in 2007, as the industry tanked and General Motors and Chrysler stumbled toward bankruptcy.
About 15 percent, or 6,300, of Ford's 42,000 UAW-represented U.S. workers earn second-tier wages, which start at about $15 an hour and top out near $20, compared with an hourly rate of about $28 for veteran auto workers. Since signing a four-year labor agreement in the fall, Ford has hired about 1,000 workers, all on the second-tier pay scale, Fleming said.
The deal allows Ford to pay second-tier wages to up to 20 percent of its work force. Although Ford has announced plans to hire thousands more workers by 2015, Fleming said he does not expect Ford to hit the cap during that time.
UAW leaders have tried to diminish opposition to two-tier wages among the rank and file by stressing that workers hired at the lower scale can graduate to full wages as more workers are hired. But that would happen only if an automaker reaches its two-tier cap.
Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that he opposes a permanent two-tier wage scale within Chrysler's U.S. plants. About 4,000 of Chrysler's 27,000 UAW-represented workers earn second-tier wages.
"The two-tier wage structure, in and by itself, is not a viable structure upon which to build our industrial footprint," Marchionne said last October, after the UAW approved its latest contract. "It creates two classes of workers within the plant."
Marchionne has advanced a single hourly wage between the two current tiers, paired with larger profit-sharing bonuses for hourly workers, which he says will protect Chrysler financially if profits or sales stagnate in the future.
UAW President Bob King and Vice President Jimmy Settles, who heads the union's Ford Department, acknowledged in an e-mailed statement that two-tier wages clash with the UAW's "longstanding value of people receiving the same pay for doing the same work."
But, they wrote, "The UAW's highest priority is the success of the companies where we represent workers because workers have the biggest risk and stake in the companies' future. This means keeping the companies globally competitive and profitable."
Two-tier wages are likely to be discussed during contract talks with the Canadian Auto Workers, which formally begin next week, though CAW leaders have opposed such a system. Fleming said two-tier wages would help Ford cut labor costs in Canada, but he stopped short of saying Ford would push for such a system in the contract talks.
Said Fleming: "Canada is one of the most expensive places in the world to manufacture vehicles."
Larry P. Vellequette contributed to this report
You can reach Nick Bunkley at nbunkley@crain.com. -- Follow Nick on 
