cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6896117
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford called on autoworkers to come together to end a monthlong strike that he says could cost the company the ability to invest in the future.
In a rare speech during contract talks in the company’s hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, Ford said high labor costs could limit spending to develop new vehicles and invest in factories. “It’s the absolute lifeblood of our company. And if we lose it, we will lose to the competition. America loses. Many jobs will be lost,” said the great grandson of company founder Henry Ford.
The company, he said, builds more vehicles in America and has more United Auto Workers employees than any company, which has increased its costs in a highly competitive industry.
Ford has 57,000 UAW workers compared with 46,000 at GM and 43,000 at Stellantis. “Many of our competitors moved jobs to Mexico as we added jobs here in the U.S.,” Ford said.
Ford had $42.5B in profit in 2023 Q2, while they spend an average of less than $8B annually on R&D. Obviously if they needed to spend more, they would already be doing it, they have the money to do so.
So they have about $160B annually they could spend before it even eats in to anything other than pure profit. They have 57k UAW workers at Ford.
So unless they are giving each new employee an additional $2.8 million PER YEAR, it will not eat into R&D whatsoever.