Ford to transition up to 500 workers to higher pay

Source: AP-Excite

By DEE-ANN DURBIN

DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. is moving several hundred U.S. hourly workers into a higher pay bracket after surpassing a cap on the number of lower-wage workers it can hire.

Ford said Wednesday that up to 500 workers will transition from an entry-level wage of $19.28 per hour to a top-tier wage of $28.50 per hour over the next two months. The first workers will get word this week. The majority of the workers affected are at plants in Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri; and Louisville, Kentucky.

Ford, General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group — now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — established separate wages and benefits for new employees and veteran ones as part of their 2007 contracts with the United Auto Workers union. Initially, there were caps on the number of lower-wage workers at each of the companies, but the caps at GM and Chrysler were suspended in 2009 as part of those companies' bankruptcy reorganizations.

Ford still has a cap of 20 percent, and it will surpass that this quarter with the hiring of 1,550 new workers to support pickup truck production in Kansas City and Michigan, according to Bill Dirksen, Ford's vice president of labor affairs. Ford has a total of 50,000 hourly workers.

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FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2014 photo, workers perform final inspections on 2015 Ford Explorers on the assembly line at the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant. Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015 said it is moving several hundred U.S. hourly workers into a higher pay bracket after surpassing a cap on the number of lower-wage workers it can hire. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)


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