Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead,” anchor Jake Tapper asked Ford CEO Jim Farley why, after CEOs got large raises, they can’t “share the profits” with the workers to avoid a strike.
Tapper said, “I just interviewed Shawn, the head of the UAW, the other day, and I wanted to pass on a question based on something he’d told me the other day, which is over the last four years, each of the big three car manufacturer CEOs in addition to their multi-million dollar salaries, they received on average a 40% pay increase. So why are the auto workers wanting a raise beyond what’s been asked, why is that so offensive compared to the 40% raises they have given themselves?
Farley said, “Actually, we’re open to huge increases.”
He added, “But 40 % would put us out of business.”
Tapper said, “It’s just there have been record auto profits, bailouts by the U.U. 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 out by the U.S. taxpayer a few years ago?”
Farley said, “Our profit sharing, we’ve distributed $75,000 over the last ten years to the average worker at Ford. We’re actually the only automaker that has added jobs to the UAW since the great recession.”
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