In this file picture, employees assemble Ford vehicles on the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant on Oct. 27, 2017, in Louisville, Ky.

Timothy D. Easley/AP

disguise caption

toggle caption

Timothy D. Easley/AP

In this file picture, employees assemble Ford vehicles on the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant on Oct. 27, 2017, in Louisville, Ky.

Timothy D. Easley/AP

DETROIT — The United Auto Workers union is threatening to go on strike subsequent week at Ford Motor Co.’s largest and most worthwhile manufacturing facility in a dispute over native contract language.

The union stated Friday that just about 9,000 employees on the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville will strike on Feb. 23 if the native contract dispute just isn’t resolved.

If there is a strike, it might be the second time the union has walked out on the sprawling manufacturing facility prior to now yr. In October, UAW employees shut down the plant throughout nationwide contract negotiations that ended with giant raises for workers.

The plant, one in all two Ford factories in Louisville, makes heavy-duty F-Series pickup vehicles and the Ford Excursion and Lincoln Navigator giant SUVs, all massively worthwhile automobiles for the corporate.

The union says that employees have been with out a native contract for 5 months. The foremost areas of dispute are well being and issues of safety, minimal in-plant nurse staffing, ergonomic points, and the corporate’s effort to scale back the variety of expert trades employees.

Ford stated that negotiations proceed and that it appears ahead to reaching an settlement on the plant.

The union says the strike might start at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 23. It says there are 19 different native agreements being negotiated with Ford, and several other extra at rivals General Motors and Stellantis.

The strike menace comes sooner or later after Ford CEO Jim Farley advised an analysts’ convention in New York that final fall’s contentious strike modified Ford’s relationship with the union to the purpose the place the automaker will “think carefully” about the place it builds future automobiles.

Farley stated that the Louisville manufacturing facility was the primary truck plant that the UAW shut down throughout final yr’s strike, although Ford made a acutely aware choice to construct all of its pickup vehicles within the U.S. Rivals General Motors and Stellantis have truck vegetation within the U.S. and Mexico.