The point is, if company has enough to give thr CEO a raise, they have enough to give the average employees raises.
Further than that, they should prioritize the average employee. Meaning, if they have extra money, give it to the average employees first, then if there is leftover, give it to the management.
A rising tide raises all ships.
It would cost Ford, if they had all 150,000 UAW, only 4% of their profits from last year to give out the 6 billion dollars necessary to give a 40% raise if those workers made 100,000 per year. And the CEO’s raise of 4 million is a fraction of a percentage of that.
I understand your point but the math doesn’t make sense when you talk about a few million dollars for the CEO. The 4 million dollar raise is 1% of the money necessary to give 10,000 workers 40,000. Yes the workers deserve a raise, and so that’s why they are striking. The CEO’s raise at this time is simply poor taste but not an apples to apples comparison.
If instead of a union, these companies had a codetermination model like in Germany this whole matter wouldn’t happen.
Ford's net income (aka profit/loss) in 2022 (FY23) was ~ -$2.1B Billion [1]. The raise would effectively add an additional $6B loss.
Think about it this way - how often do you see a brand new Big 3 car? At least in the Bay Area it's not often - it's mostly Tesla, Japanese (Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Acura, Nissan), Korean (Hyundai, Kia), and German (BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen) automakers. And I've see a similar split both across the west and east coasts.
Eg. In 2022, the big 3 represented ~40-45% of new car sales in the US, with an average of 10% decreases in sales across the board [0]. And unlike Japanese, Korean, or German players, the Big 3 are shut out or divested out of the Asian market (eg. China, India, ASEAN) meaning no growth market in the horizon.
There isn't that much money left for the Big 3 to generate profits when enough people aren't buying their products.
[0] - https://www.carpro.com/blog/full-year-2022-national-auto-sal...
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/F/ford-motor/net-i...
And by model[0], they make up 8 of the top 25, 5 of the top 10 with the F150 being the #1 selling vehicle.
Not everyone lives on the coasts. While the Japanese brands are very common here too (and I personally prefer them) my work parking lot probably has Ford trucks as the most used vehicle.
The auto industry needs to pivot to survive the next few decades for sure but some sliver of profits going to the workers is only reasonable. My hypothetical was Ford having to fund a high raise for all UAW workers when they would in reality not need to.
If there isn't enough money to go around, don't just give it out to yourself.
This[0] statement from Ford does align with what you are saying, I clearly misread the 150 billion number which was revenue. However they claim to have over 30 billion in cash it looks like. 2 billion of that could cover $40,000 raises for up to 50,000 employees for the next 15 years. Even splitting that by raising costs by some fraction of a percentage, taking out half a billion from the cash and then 1 billion from the profits is more mathematically sound than just saying the CEO should take a cut to cover the costs of the raise.
[0]: https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...
