Ford’s success stirs UAW resentment in labor talks

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford‘s turnaround over the last five years has resulted in big profits and won its CEO a reputation for brilliant management.

But those same achievements are stirring resentment among many of its factory workers. And that is complicating contract talks between the company and its union employees.

GM and Chrysler needed government bailouts and bankruptcy protection to stay in business, but Ford took billions in private loans and endured on its own.

As a result, Ford became a consumer favorite and the company prospered. It paid Mulally for engineering the turnaround and restored merit pay and some other benefits for white-collar workers, angering union members.

“The compensation for the CEO has been widely publicized, and those kinds of things wend their way up and down the assembly line,” says Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a specialist in labor issues. “It creates higher expectations.”

Ford compensation records obtained by The Associated Press shows that UAW-represented hourly workers have seen larger increases in pay and benefits over the last decade than many white-collar workers.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com …

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