Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative deal that could nearly double the number of workers at the Brook Park plant. The deal could bring a new small engine to the site.
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Ford could add as many as 800 jobs to its Brook Park plant over the next few years thanks to a tentative new contract with the United Auto Workers. The plant, pictured in this file photo, makes V-6 engines for trucks, crossovers and some cars now, but the new contract would add a smaller car engine line.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative new deal for the company's Brook Park engine plant that could bring hundreds of jobs to the site, over the next several years.
"We get this in place, we're home free," UAW Local 1250 President Mike Gammella said late Wednesday. "We'll get close to doubling our people."
The plant now employs 1,065 workers. Gammella said that could eventually go up to 1,800 if workers approve the deal. Voting begins Monday on the new contract.
The new jobs would be necessary to start a new line of small engines for cars at a plant that now specializes in bigger V-6 motors used in pickups.
In 2011, Ford agreed to put a small new engine at the plant by 2015 as part of a nationwide agreement with the UAW. As is typical with the national contract, a new local agreement was a condition of that deal.
Gammella said he doesn't think workers will find any problems in the new tentative deal. The union did not agree to any concessions such as changes to work rules or the ability to drop some higher-paid skilled trades positions.
"We didn't give anything up," Gammella said. "We got back some things that people had been asking for" such as seniority rights that would allow more veteran workers to bump less-senior workers from their jobs on different engine lines at times when production slows.
If passed, and if Ford brings as many jobs as Gammella hopes, this would be the first big expansion at the Brook Park site after years of cuts.
Ford in 2010 closed the massive casting plant that made iron engine blocks at what was then a three-plant campus. It tore down that plant last year. Also last year. Ford shuttered its Cleveland Engine Plant No. 2 at Brook Park when it ended production there.
The closing of the second engine plant coincided with Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 adding a third shift, a step the company said was necessary because of growing demand for the EcoBoost V-6 engines built there. The EcoBoost F-150 pickup was a major success for Ford last year.
Most of the tentative contract deals with technical issues such as overtime planning, skilled trades rules, vacation planning and the other day-to-day concerns of union members.
The contract did not include any language allowing Ford to hire more lower-paid workers at the plant. In 2007, the UAW agreed to let Ford pay new hires about half of what more-senior workers get. But automakers could only hire the new, lower-paid workers, if there were no Ford workers on layoff at other plants.
Ford will have some available workers who could fill roles at Brook Park, such as workers at the Walton Hills stamping plant that is set to close within the next two years. So many of those workers could transfer to Brook Park.
At other auto plants, such as General Motors' facilities in Lordstown and Lake Orion, Mich., the union has agreed to let more junior workers start, even when senior workers were available.
In hopes of guaranteeing a quick passage, Gammella posted the entire contract to the union's web site, allowing workers to download the massive file and go over the details themselves.
"Once everybody sees the agreement, they'll be very happy with it," Gammella said.