A screen shot of a U.A.W. Facebook page.
DETROIT — As Ford’s 41,000 hourly workers weigh the merits of their proposed four-year contract in plants and union halls across the United States this week, their debates have spilled onto Facebook, providing a glimpse into which issues are influencing their votes most.
For the first time, the United Automobile Workers union has been using social media to communicate with its members during the contract talks in Detroit, and the most intense back-and-forth has occurred in the last few days, as ratification voting got under way at Ford.
Some bemoaned the lack of a wage increase while Ford’s two top executives got bonuses totaling about $100 million. Others criticized the continuation of a two-tier wage scale.
Even those who said they supported the deal acknowledged being unhappy with many portions of it. Some suggested the deal would be much better received if it covered just two years instead of four, so the terms could be revisited sooner.
One of the union staff members who administer the “U.A.W. Ford Department” page and worked closely with the bargaining team during talks, conceded that the agreement was less than ideal but argued that circumstances did not allow for anything better.
“In 2015 we will do better,” the post said. “This is not the last agreement we will ever settle and hopefully our economy, our image, and our ability to bargain with a bigger stick will be better in the future. But this is not the time to wage this war.”
As it became apparent that more workers were voting “no,” talk turned to the possibility of a strike as soon as next week.
A man who identified himself as working in the body shop of Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, said the mood had become “somber and quiet” there.
A few workers noted that Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, was an executive at Boeing during a 69-day strike in 1995, saying that the deal that workers at that company eventually approved was worse than the one they rejected to begin the walkout.
A Ford worker in Louisville expressed concern that any gains made by a strike against Ford would be overshadowed by wages lost while on the picket lines. The U.A.W. pays its members $200 a week for strike duty, roughly one-fifth of full wages.
The U.A.W. had posted updates to Facebook on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings indicating that early voting was around 50-50.
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