CNN anchor Jake Tapper grilled Ford CEO Jim Farley during an interview this week about the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike that is impacting America’s big three automakers.
Around 13,000 auto workers stopped working as picketing began outside a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan; a GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri; and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. The strike comes after weeks of negotiations between the union and leadership at the automakers.
A CNN reporter was interviewing Farley when Tapper interrupted her and to point out what the head of the UAW was saying.
“I just wanted to pass on a question based on something he told me the other day which is that over the last four years, each of the Big Three car manufacturers’ CEOs, in addition to their multimillion dollar salaries, they received on average of 40 percent pay increase,” Tapper said. “So why are the auto workers wanting a raise beyond what’s been asked, why is that so offensive compared to the 40 percent raises they have given themselves?”
Farley said that the company was “really open to huge increases” in the “double digit” range, “increases we have never seen before, 20-plus percent.”
Farley said that going to 40 percent would put the company out of business and that he refused to cut the company’s push for electric vehicles, despite losing $4.5 billion in the endeavor.
“There’s a fine line here that we won’t go past, which is we want everyone to participate in our success. But if it prevents us from investing in this transition to EVs and in future products like the ones we have now, like new F-150, bestselling vehicle in the world — in the U.S., then everyone’s job is at risk if we don’t invest,” he said.
Tapper pushed back, “It’s just there have been record auto profits, bailouts by the U.S. government. These huge raises that these CEOs are giving themselves, and I just wonder, why there isn’t more of a desire of the CEOs to have the workers share in the profits that are coming in to these automakers who just need we remind him were bailed outside by the U.S. taxpayer a few years ago?”
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