Ford-UAW deal cuts wages to $55 an hour

DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co expects operating savings of $500 million per year from an agreement with the United Auto Workers that also will make its labor costs competitive with Japanese rivals, the company said on Wednesday.

The agreement trims average wages and benefits for UAW hourly workers to about $55 per hour this year, from more than $70 per hour when Ford was negotiating a watershed contract with the union two years ago.

That figure is expected to drop to about $50 per hour by 2011, or roughly on a par with what Japanese automakers led by Toyota Motor Corp will be paying their non-union U.S. factory workers, Ford said.

Labor costs represent only about 10 percent of the total cost of producing a vehicle in the United States, but Detroit automakers have faced increasing pressure to eliminate a wage and benefit gap with the U.S. operations of their Japanese rivals, referred to in the industry as transplant automakers.

Reuters