Hourly workers at Ford’s U.S. facilities get $1,000 for each billion of revenue, leading to $7,600 for 2018.
According to a report by The Buffalo News, Union Auto Workers at Ford facilities around the United States will be getting a check for $7,600 on March 14th as part of the UAW’s profit-sharing program. While the initial report applies specifically to members of the United Auto Workers Local 897, which provides workers to Ford’s Buffalo Stamping Facility, the profit-sharing program applies to all eligible hourly production workers from every Motor Company plant around the country. This means that thousands of workers around the United States will be getting this $7,600 check in a little over a month.
Hourly Profit Sharing
Per the current agreement between Ford Motor Company and the UAW, hourly workers receive money through the profit sharing program at the rate of $1,000 per $1 billion in company earnings before income and taxes (EBIT). Ford recently announced an EBIT figure for 2018 of $7.6 billion, meaning that each eligible hourly worker will receive $7,600.
An eligible hourly production worker is anyone who has not “terminated their employment for a reason other than death, layoff or approved leave, retirement or sale of the operation in which they were employed”. In other words, if you are an hourly production worker at any of the Motor Company’s facilities around the United States right now, you have a nice check on the way.
At the Buffalo Stamping Plant, Ford employees around 900 hourly production workers, so when you consider the number of production facilities around the country, the number of UAW members who will be getting this check from the Motor Company could be in the tens-of-thousands.
A Drop in Ford’s Bucket
While $7,600 is serious money for the average person, consider this math. If Ford has 25,000 hourly workers who apply for this profit sharing check (that number is purely speculative), the company will be paying around $190,000,000 through this program. You might think that is a big chunk of change for the automaker, but that number is just 2.5% of the company’s income before taxes spread among all of the American workers that work in their plants across the country.
It is a good deal for Ford while providing a significant bonus to every one of their hourly production workers.
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