Ford Motor said Thursday that it will add around 6,200 union jobs in the Midwest as it redoes three manufacturing plants to construct new electric and gas-powered models, including a new seventh-generation version of the Mustang roadster.
The factory investments, expected to cost $3.7 billion, will go toward retooling plants to construct a new commercial electric vehicle and all-new versions of the gas-powered Ford Mustang and Ford Ranger. Ford will likewise add laborers to build the production of Ford Transit commercial vans and Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickups.
The organization gave no insights regarding the new electric commercial vehicle, but to say that its production will start “mid-decade” at a current plant in Ohio.
Notwithstanding the new jobs, almost 3,000 temporary factory employees will be made full-time hourly workers in front of a schedule negotiated with the United Auto Workers, said Kumar Galhotra, president of the organization’s “Ford Blue” internal-combustion business, in a media preparation.
Those workers will get salary increases and health-care benefits right away, Galhotra said.
Because of talks with the UAW, Ford said it will likewise spend $1 billion over the next five years on workplace upgrades in U.S. factories, including better lighting for parking areas and more food options in cafeterias.
The successes for the union come as numerous U.S. organizations are battling to recruit laborers and as expansion is powering Americans’ uncertainty about their finances.
It’s strange for a Detroit automaker to give huge concessions to UAW-represented workers outside of the contract-renewal process, which happens every four years. The current labor deal between Ford and the UAW isn’t up for renewal until September 2023.
The moves might be expected to facilitate the union’s concerns around two huge new Ford electric-vehicle factory campuses, in Kentucky and Tennessee, that probably won’t have UAW representation. The two states are so-called right-to-work states and Ford has said it will permit its hourly workers in those states to pick whether they want to be represented by the union.