Ford Motor Co. (F-N7.570.152.02%) has promised the United Auto Workers that its U.S. plants will receive a flurry of new vehicles, transmissions and other work during the next few years, while refusing so far to allocate new products to two Canadian plants.
Three Ford assembly plants – in Chicago, Louisville, Ky., and Wayne, Mich. – will begin building new vehicles in the next two years, and a commercial van called the Transit Connect that is now imported from Europe will be built at a UAW plant if North American assembly becomes necessary, according to investment commitments contained in a new contract between Ford and the union.
“The company reaffirmed its commitment to the UAW and its manufacturing presence in the U.S.,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s group vice-president of global manufacturing, said in a letter to UAW officials that is part of the new contract.
