Over the next few weeks, Ford Motor and the United Automobile Workers union each are faced with the challenge of selling the tentative contract they reached Saturday as the best they could get in light of Ford?s decline. Industry analysts said Ford would need to assure Wall Street that it is not backtracking on its revamping plan as it tries to secure the labor peace that eluded General Motors and Chrysler. Meanwhile, the union must win support from Ford?s 54,000 members made wary by the job cuts that immediately after the approval of new contracts at the other Detroit auto companies. Hanging over both the company and the union is the likelihood that conditions in the American auto industry will only get worse over the coming year.
See "Next Hurdle for Ford and U.A.W. Will Be Selling Contract Proposal", Micheline Maynard, The New York Times, November 4, 2007