Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley said that meeting the union’s wage demands would drive the company to bankruptcy.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union is hours away from going on strike against the “Big Three” automakers in the United States, but Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley said that the union’s demands are unrealistic for companies to meet.
Union members voted last month to strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis unless a deal can be reached between the manufacturers and negotiators by 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Among the demands of the UAW, which represents around 150,000 auto workers, are 40 percent pay increases for employees over a four-year contract—the same compensation hike that all Big Three CEOs have garnered in the past four years.
But while speaking with CNBC Thursday afternoon, Farley warned that meeting the UAW’s demands could cause a nearly $16 billion loss in company profits, and that Ford would have “gone bankrupt by now.”
“The average pay would be nearly $300,000 [per employee] for a four-day workweek,” Farley said.
