Ford workers to receive record profit-sharing checks despite 2023 strike (2024)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Ford Motor Co.'s union assembly workers will receive record profit-sharing bonuses for their work in 2023 despite taking down some of the automaker's key plants during a high-profile, six-week labor strike.

UAW Ford workers are set to receive an average payment of $10,416, according to a memo from the union's top Ford official, Chuck Browning, to other UAW officials dated Tuesday. WDRB News obtained a copy of the memo.

While each worker's bonus depends on actual hours worked during the year, 2023 marks the first the time the average payment has exceeded $10,000, according to historical data previously disclosed by Ford.

The bonuses are part of the UAW's labor contracts with the Big Three automakers. Ford workers are entitled to a share of the company's North American profits each year.

Designed to hit the company financially, strikes usually also reduce profitability and, thus, profit sharing to workers.

Ford workers won significant raises and other changes in a new labor deal that resulted from the strike.

The company estimated last year that it took a $1.7 billion hit in earnings from the strike.

But Ford, across all its divisions, reported $4.3 billion in net income on revenue of $176 billion in 2023, compared to a loss of $1.9 billion in 2022.

"Despite the UAW strike, our auto profits were up year over year," Ford CEO Jim Farley said during an investor call Tuesday.