Dear Sisters and Brothers,

On January 20, 2010 we attended the UAW National Ford Council Meetings in Detroit and voted overwhelmingly to support Vice President King’s recommendation to file policy grievances in every UAW Ford and ACH bargaining unit signed by every member protesting Ford’s recent announcement to restore certain non represented salary compensation and benefit programs. Vice President King reported that top UAW leaders had immediately protested Ford’s announcement and have held numerous meetings expressing our strong disagreement and anger over the announcement.
We are outraged that after UAW members have sacrificed so much to keep Ford viable that Ford would so irresponsibly violate the terms of the letters of understanding in the 2007 UAW Ford National Collective Bargaining Agreement and the 2009 Modification dealing with Equality of Sacrifice.
The UAW and Ford have accomplished important goals by working together. Most importantly though our collective bargaining efforts we have kept numerous plants open and put major investment and products in our plants in the Untied States when other auto companies were closing multiple plants and shipping work to countries outside of the United Sates. Many communities have been saved by our members’ sacrifices to keep products and investment here in the U.S.
Also through the great work ethic and cooperation of our UAW Ford members working with Ford management at both the plant and National level the Quality of Ford products has risen to the best in the industry. The fact that we were able to accomplish dramatic improvements in quality at the same time we were going through tremendous churning of the workforce due to the retirement and buyouts is unprecedented in any industry and a huge tribute to the UAW Ford hourly members who accomplished this in their day to day work.
We cannot allow Ford to make the huge mistake of undermining the morale of the most important players in their path to recovery. Alan Mulally has led this recovery under the theme of One Ford, One Team, One Goal. It is a flagrant violation of the language and principles of the UAW Ford Contract and ill advised in the midst of this recovery to restore the compensation and benefit programs for one group without equitable restoration to all.

We are asking every member to stand in Solidarity and sign the policy grievance protesting Fords flagrant contract violations!

In Solidarity,



Rodney Clemons Keith Brown
R&E Chairman President