Ford’s Bill Ford’s Anxiety

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 17, 9:50AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Ford’s Bill Ford’s Anxiety — © SandraMatic / iStock via Getty Images

Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford registered a deep concern about the UAW strike. His CEO, Jim Farley, made a similar plea weeks ago. Bill Ford will not acknowledge that he is a billionaire who makes millions of dollars a year. That gives the unions tremendous leverage and makes his complaints hollow. Bill Ford has not offered to take a pay cut as a symbolic gesture. No wonder the strike has continued. (These vehicles stopped production due to the UAW strike.)

According to the AP, Ford said that high labor costs would limit money available for new product development, So he must assume that the unions would take less money to help him make money. “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. In other words, please help me, and I will help you. However, that is only true if union members do not ask for more money.

Ford (the company) also cannot wash away the fact that it makes billions of dollars. It has decided to invest billions in the development of electric vehicles. But management decided to take what may be a long shot. The union did not have a voice in that decision, as is the case at European car companies, where labor representatives sit on boards.
[nativounit]
Unions may think the huge investment may be a huge risk, increasing the likelihood that they will be paid much better. Even worse, Ford is up against the likes of Tesla. And the appetite for Ford’s electric offerings appears to be slow.
[recirclink id=1172911]
Bill Ford can plea as much as he likes. He wants to remain a billionaire.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.