Ford contract would make concessions permanent!

The tentative Ford contract means this: Ford will give us a signing bonus of $6,000 (before taxes), plus four $1,500 bonuses (before taxes) and promises of profit-sharing. But we lose all the concessions we gave up. Everything that we want back, Ford said NO! NO! NO! NO raises, NO COLA, NO performance bonuses, NO Christmas bonuses, NO Easter Monday holiday, NO return of lost break time. NO overtime after 8 hours. (Letter on back-up time doesnt change this.) First tier autoworkers lost up to $30,000 in concessions over the last few years. Now Ford wants to continue these concessions for another 4 years. At what cost to us? Lose another $30,000? All for $12,000 in bonuses? No raises for 4 more years, after we have already waited 6 years? They give us an early take on 2011 profit-sharing this November by taking it away from next Marchs money hoping we will jump at the money now and forget about what happens later. Active Ford workers should take the time to study the wages and health care benefits of these entry level workers. That is what we will get in 2015. The biggest concession is that 2-tier will continue. This contract does not bring up the 2nd-tier workers up to first tier. All the new hires will be low tier no matter what they do. This contract keeps them permanent 2nd-tier, with no path to move up to first tier wages and benefits. The pledge to replace workers on a one for one basis is stricken from this contract. The pay increase, spread over 4 years, barely makes up for what 2nd-tier workers lost in the 2009 concessions. The supposed 20% limit on 2nd-tier workers is filled with loopholes. The percentage of 2ndtier workers will increase, meaning the threat of everyone being eventually reduced to 2nd-tier will increase. The profit-sharing formula is supposed to be improved, by including North American operations instead of just the U.S. But what is to keep Ford from shifting profits around to hide them? Do you trust Ford? There is also a cap on profit-sharing when there didn't used to be one. And there is no guarantee of getting profit-sharing every year. This contract makes us pay for what Ford did not put into the VEBA. The VEBA is underfunded because Ford only put in 57% of what was needed for retiree health care. Retirees are paying more out of pocket. Instead of making Ford pay for their obligations, this contract would take 10% of any profitsharing we might get to put into the VEBA. New retirees will take another hit because for the first contract ever, there is no increase in the 30-andout pension. Current retirees Christmas bonus is taken away from them. There are promises of new jobs. But remember the 2007 contract where Ford promised to save 10,000 jobs instead we lost 17,300 jobs. If you look closely at the promises of jobs, it is mostly work that Ford was going to do anyway. Insourced work will be tracked separately and not included in the 20% entry level employment numbers. Rawsonville and Sterling Axle plants will be exclusively low tier. Add in the Long Term Supplemental Employees and its a safe bet that low tier entry level will be the majority in 2015. You will be glad to learn that Minor maintenance actions will be performed by production employees.....

The National Partners promise to strong arm disobedient local unions. When the past concessions were taken away from us, they wanted us to believe that when the companies were reporting a profit again, we would get back what we gave up. It was all a lie. They want us to accept that these concessions will be permanent. But we dont have to stand by and watch our families standard of living be permanently reduced, while our bosses are the only ones who prosper from our hard work. This contract completes the restructuring of the UAW from a worker's union to an arm of Ford's human resource management team. The Ford contract does have more upfront money than the GM contract. But lets remember why it is more because we voted No in 2009. It s a good lesson to remember this time. Ford is so cash strapped they doled out a half billion dollars to investors in 2006; rewarded it's 2 top executives $98 million. Publicly announced in 2006 a 6-year project to invest 9.2 billion dollars in Mexico, additional investments in Brazil, China, and Turkey, including 27.5 million dollars for a research and engineering center in China, and 375 million dollars for another in Turkey. In 2007 Ford bought a Rumanian car company for nearly one billion dollars, and spent another 500 million dollars to expand a plant in Thailand. All these investments overseas came from profits made by US labor. Im voting NO and I ask you to vote NO!