Ford CEO says company will rethink where it builds vehicles after last year’s autoworkers strike

By TOM KRISHER
AP Auto Writer

DETROIT (AP) — Ford’s top executive says that last fall’s contentious United Auto Workers’ strike changed the company’s relationship with the union to the point where it will “think carefully” about where it builds future vehicles. CEO Jim Farley told the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York Thursday that the company always took pride in its relationship with the UAW, having avoided strikes since the 1970s. But last year, Ford’s highly profitable factory in Louisville, Kentucky, was the first truck plant that the UAW shut down with a strike. Farley said as the company looks at the transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles, “we have to think carefully about our (manufacturing) footprint.”