Ford Offer to UAW Links Job Security, Quality

Ford Motor Co. on Thursday gave the United Auto Workers union its first contract proposal since bargaining began in late July, but negotiators on both sides remained close-mouthed about its contents.

Stanley J. Surma, Ford’s chief negotiator, said the six-page proposal recognized that a new contract must address the union’s chief concern of job security but didn’t include concrete mechanisms for protecting workers.

“The proposal provides for continuing quality improvement, personal economic growth and greater job security. It also recognizes the need to improve the company’s ability to compete in a global environment of ever-increasing challenges,” Surma said.

Surma stressed that the No. 2 auto maker wants to reach a contract that fits Ford’s needs, escaping the tradition of pattern bargaining in which the UAW seeks similar pacts at all auto makers.

Contracts for 104,000 Ford workers and 335,000 General Motors Corp. workers expire Sept. 14. The contract for No. 3 Chrysler Corp. expires next year.

Surma said any move toward greater job security must be linked with quality improvements and flexibility that would allow Ford to make business decisions.

Ford and GM have said they need contracts that will allow them to buy parts and cars from outside firms or countries, close plants and shrink payrolls if needed.

UAW Vice President Stephen Yokich did not immediately reject the proposal, as UAW Vice President Donald F. Ephlindid with GM’s first offer, which came two weeks into negotiations. Ephlin, Yokich and UAW President Owen Bieber will meet Monday with other UAW officers to choose a strike target.

Yokich said he was disappointed that the Ford proposal didn’t address job security more specifically.

“We are concerned about the job security portion of it,” he said. “Quite frankly, again, they’re still talking in concept. We would hope that very soon they would tell us what the concept is rather than keep telling us there is a concept.”

Yokich said the offer also wasn’t specific enough on quality improvements.

Surma said the proposal contained detailed economic terms, which he declined to reveal. Yokich also avoided economic specifics but said: “It’s through the eyes of the beholder. There’s a couple of areas there that could be personal economic growth” to some.

The union will get a second proposal from GM today. GM’s first proposal called for annual lump-sum payments in place of percentage increases in pay and cost-of-living allowances.

The GM plan would have granted the payments in the second and third year of the three-year contract only to workers at plants that met individual targets for improving quality and productivity.

The payments for components and parts workers would have been smaller than for assembly plant workers, and the targets wouldn’t be set until after the contract was ratified.