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Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

84 points by ripe 1y ago

kotaKat 1y ago
Now imagine if you could make affordable sedans again, Jim. How does Gen Z afford a $50,000 electric SUV?
- RankingMember 1y ago
  Unfortunately sedans and hatches are just about completely out for the domestic automakers- they sold poorly and were discontinued. The reasons behind poor sales are surely multi-faceted, but, for Ford in particular, they didn't help matters with quality issues like the "Powershift" dual-clutch automatic, which was flawed from the beginning and left a lot of Focus and Fiesta owners (both now discontinued in the US) with a bad taste in their mouth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_PowerShift_transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_PowerShift_transmission
  - floatrock 1y ago
    domestic sedans and hatches sold poorly and were discontinued. Quality might have some small piece there, but there's other factors like: - large trucks & SUVs are more profitable - there's import restrictions on that category so it has a certain insulation from foreign competition - US car companies are really just banks that happen to make cars -- "cash is king" was for our dads, now if you want a deal it's "take our corporate 20-year financing on an asset that will be fully depreciated in 8"
  - kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
    The root cause is CAFE regulations and the penalty for small-footprint vehicles. You get more profit if you don't have to make higher efficiency cars rather than cheaper trucks. You get more profit if you make larger trucks rather than smaller. The optimal solution is to make cars undesirable with poor quality or stop building them altogether by pretending they're trucks (PT Cruiser, all XUVs) and make smaller trucks unavailable.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- 1970-01-01 1y ago
  Nobody is buying new electric SUVs and saying the words "it was in my affordable range" They buy it used when its half-priced or lower, around $25k, or lease it.
- josefresco 1y ago
  Ford Maverick starts at around $27K. It's not a sedan but it's not $50K.
  - kotaKat 1y ago
    Yeah, and it was a $19k truck with a hybrid, and now it’s $29k with the I4.
colechristensen 1y ago
That Ford CEO is stupid. There's no "shortage" of workers. Corporations are expecting other people to train their employees past entry level and pay these people with midlevel experience like badly paid unskilled laborers. Nobody is investing years of their time and large sums of money to get trained up for a shitty job? SURPRISE SURPRISE If you won't take an average person with no knowledge of your industry and train them to be an expert while on the job, the problem is you, not everybody else.
- freedomben 1y ago
  I don't disagree, but I do think the modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this. As a leader entrusted to make good decisions for the company, you must consider this reality. At a previous company we hired a lot of junior engineers with the idea that our relatively high pay and reasonably good work would help us build a strong generation of seniors a few years down the road. What we mostly found was that we spent a ton of money and our sr eng time training and sharpening them, only for the vast majority of them to leave after 1 to 3 years. As I've gotten more into hiring, it's not at all surprising to me now as this is just clearly in the culture. To be clear I'm not blaming the employees, in fact I blame ridiculously stupid HR practices for the last 20 years because they built a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too.
  - asimovfan 1y ago
    "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs?
    - freedomben 1y ago
      > "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? Yes that's what I mean, though I was making the argument from the perspective of the employer. Didn't mean mean any shade with "company hopping" (I've done that in the past because it was the best thing for me and my career, and I stand by those decisions, so I don't mean them with any negative connotations from the employee perspective at least, and from the employer perspective it's their own damn fault though they rarely ever recognize it). > when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? Yes, not paying them as much as another company would offer, plus being stingy with promotion opportunities (like from jr to mid, mid to sr, etc). > do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs? Yes absolutely, a culture born out of changing realities/incentives. That's not to say it wouldn't switch back if companies started rewarding loyalty again, but it won't spin on a dime.
nerdsniper 1y ago
> Ford’s signature element in its new labor agreement was to get full wages to entry-level workers. But beyond that, he began looking at the labor shortage in trade work, starting with technicians.“Old-timers in our plants were saying, ‘It’s no longer a career, Mr. Farley. Working at Ford is no longer a career.’” He warned that millions of well-paid jobs are going unfilled because they require specialized skills. Putting the salaries for these jobs at $100,000 and above, Farley argued that they require training. “You can’t work on a diesel F-150 if you haven’t been trained for five years, at a minimum five years,” Farley noted. It’s not a demand problem—there’s plenty of work—but a dire shortage of young people choosing and staying in the trades. I looked into this a bit more, because I wanted to understand how much the Ford CEO's posited solution rested on "you can earn a living if you do a different job!" vs. "You can earn a living at any full-time job at my company". In 2023, the new agreement Ford made with UAW: - Increased starting wages by 68%, from $17 to $28 an hour. - New workers reach the top pay rate in three years, a significant improvement from the previous eight-year progression. - Top wage increased to over $40 an hour.
- ZephyrBlu 1y ago
  Pretty crazy improvement, seems like he's putting his money where his mouth is
  - justin66 1y ago
    Once those UAW workers achieve seniority they might be able to afford a very small house.
    - nerdsniper 1y ago
      In fairness, homes in Detroit can be quite affordable. There are quite a few 2,000 sq. ft. homes listed for <$150,000 that may be 80 years old but are updated with a modern interior look. These would be affordable to a 22-year old factory worker making $80,000 ($40/hr) with no college debt, even if they didn't perfectly optimize their budget. Good school districts are likely to be less affordable though, but cost of raising children is a whole other can of worms.
wyldfire 1y ago
This epiphany is really just manifestation of many things like gasoline-on-fire stock buybacks [1] [2]. [1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ [2] https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1399&context=honorscollege_theses https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
- phtrivier 1y ago
  From [1] > The growing wedge between productivity and typical workers’ pay is income going everywhere but the paychecks of the bottom 80% of workers. If it didn’t end up in paychecks of typical workers, where did all the income growth implied by the rising productivity line go? Two places, basically. It went into the salaries of highly paid corporate and professional employees. And it went into higher profits (returns to shareholders and other wealth owners). This concentration of wage income at the top (growing wage inequality) and the shift of income from labor overall and toward capital owners (the loss in labor’s share of income) are two of the key drivers of economic inequality overall since the late 1970s. This part: > returns to shareholders and other wealth owners My understanding is that "other wealth owners" include... pensioners (through pension funds), is that correct ? Beside the sheer greed of shareholders, how much does the curve boil down to "companies have to use revenues to pay current workers and previous workers, and we make new 'previous workers' every year" ?
ratelimitsteve 1y ago
For this to be the CEO of Ford in particular is interesting because this is part of their founding narrative. Whether it holds up to historical scrutiny isn't something I can answer but the lore is that Henry Ford purposely paid more than market for his laborers with the idea that he'd get his pick and then those workers would then buy Fords with that money because they knew they were the best cars built by the best workers with the most experience because they stayed at Ford their whole careers.
- nickdothutton 1y ago
  Wasn't there some law suit from Chrysler, who tried to _stop_ him doing that? Presumably because it would give workers too much wage setting power in the market?
  - jkestner 1y ago
    It was the Dodge brothers back when they were minority owners of Ford, and it was the case that poisoned us with “fiduciary duty to the shareholder”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
    - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
      what's wild is that it could be argued that this was in the shareholders' best interest as well, because it was in the best interest of the health of the company, but somehow that doesn't satisfy a "fiduciary duty" When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope
      - deaux 1y ago
        > When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope It's not worth asking, as they're lying and they know it. It does not mean every decision made has to be to maximize shareholder wealth. As you're pointing out, even if incorrectly interpreted as such, any decision could be justified as doing so besides outrageous cases of intentionally tanking the company. This, in turn, is why no business gets prosecuted over this either.
techdmn 1y ago
Seems like a good time to mention my old stand-by: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. There may very well be a shortage of qualified people willing to work under the conditions and for the compensation a company would like to provide. When stated that way you can see that there are several levers to pull, the most obvious being compensation.
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  99% of the time, I agree with you. But hypothetically, what would you call a situation where 20 companies would all be willing to pay salaries of $1 million/year to fill 10,000 open positions that required 5 years of training, but there are only 5,000 people who have that training? Would that be a "labor shortage"? It seems your solution works for companies willing to pay more to poach from other companies, but might not work in situations where all of them need more skilled labor now. Also, the $1M/year illustrates a point...why not $10 million or $100 million/year? At some point, the salaries are indeed "high enough" but the skills still just aren't available to hire.
  - baby_souffle 1y ago
    > At some point, the salaries are indeed "high enough" but the skills still just aren't available to hire. But the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out, no?
    - culturestate 1y ago
      In a perfectly efficient market, yes, but the market is notably not perfectly efficient. People make decisions about which career(s) to pursue or not pursue based on a huge variety of factors that stretch far beyond money. There is absolutely no scenario in which you could convince me to train as e.g. an underwater welder, no matter how much cash you’re offering.
    - nerdsniper 1y ago
      Sure. But the GP is arguing that "there's no such thing as a labor shortage". I'm trying to determine what their definition of "labor shortage" is. Perhaps the GP believes that the term itself is meaningless, or perhaps they believe that no current real-world situation fits their definition. So I created a hypothetical situation to illustrate what, to me, is a clear example of a temporary labor shortage. As you say, "the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out" ... and I'd say that's true, but until it gets sorted out, the situation can reasonably be described as a "labor shortage".
Psillisp 1y ago
“And there I was sitting on my yacht, middle of September — when I had an epiphany. My workers are poor, but why…”
- Psillisp 1y ago
  Italian boot leather just tastes better.
bilekas 1y ago
> But beyond that, he began looking at the labor shortage in trade work, starting with technicians. It's amazing how there can be labour shortages, yet companies still don't pay people a living wage. I thought the market was supposed to be all based around supply and demand. This just shows how out of touch these CEO's are. They should work a year on the lowest salaried employee of their company for a while.
- sieep 1y ago
  The market will follow supply and demand at its equilibrium, which clearly we are not at. The question is: what is preventing it from reaching that point?
1970-01-01 1y ago
Finally, someone at the top realizing how unrealistic new career paths are. They must have a solid step on a career ladder. This includes the daily cashflow to stick with it and actually make it to that 2nd step. If you continue to jerk them around with minimum wage jobs, everyone will regret it.
constantcrying 1y ago
It is ridiculous to have American workers and Chinese workers doing essentially the same job, at the same quality, while their salaries differ enormously. American (and European) automotive companies will never be able to compete long term in any market which allows competition between Chinese and American (or European) cars. The labor of an auto worker is not worth that much and only by banning competition can American auto manufacturing survive short term.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  Maybe China is the one that will find their labor compensation unsustainable?
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    In a world with a globalized economy it is a total abnormality that workers who are globally average are getting compensated far above the global average salary. Workers who have such demands can only exist because of very specific historical circumstances. Chinese workers are much closer to earning what you would expect the globally average worker to earn.
    - dcrazy 1y ago
      This sounds like an economically naïve take that ignores those realities of local labor markets, relative purchasing power, and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place.
      - constantcrying 1y ago
        Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. >local labor markets, relative purchasing power Reverse causality. >and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place. If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ...
ramesh31 1y ago
Just tell them to go live in a van down by the River Rouge, Mr. Farley.
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  It's interesting that myself, and a non-insignificant number of other people, would take an option like this if it were legal. It would certainly make vacations much more affordable to be able to bring my home with me and not pay for an AirBNB/hotel + rental car/ubers! However, to someone for whom rent is an onerous expense, vans and box trucks are prohibitively expensive, especially when you consider 10 year TCO.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >It's interesting that myself, and a non-insignificant number of other people, would take an option like this if it were legal. Pretty much everything that makes housing/living unaffordable is a result of intentional regulatory decisions between about 1960 and 2000 (with the biggest exception I can think of being the coopting of the IBC by various product manufactures, that picked up in the 2010s and beyond). You can't live in a van or other mobile thing because zoning. You can't build a non-mobile thing by the river because wetlands. And even if you could the thing you want to build can't be build because the rules and the codes are riddled with carve outs to make work for well lobbied industries.
  - pibb_xtra_ 1y ago
    God I wish I could live by a river. Sadly they’re all toxic now it seems.
- silverquiet 1y ago
  Fun note, Jim Farley is indeed a cousin of Chris Farley.
  - runlaszlorun 1y ago
    That's too funny. Having just looked, the resemblance is totally there.
hn_throw_250926 1y ago
You guys really are gullible if you think this is some good hearted gesture. Follow the money.
mwkaufma 1y ago
(CEO in a hot dog costume): we're all trying to find the guy who did this!
whatever1 1y ago
Why would I learn my father’s trade when I can see all day in TikTok all of these people doing GRWM with fancy fits and making matcha lattes at their super fancy corporate offices, or others becoming rich by having enough likes and followers, or others having lambos from day trading? Now that I see other peoples idealized lives 24/7, I want THAT. In the meantime I will work a 3 times/week 4 hour shift at Starbies. ——- Related: ——- “Whop’s 2024 survey gathered insights from 910 U.S. Gen Alpha across the U.S. aged between 12-15 years old. Participants selected all careers they were aspiring towards. 1.YouTuber (32%) 2.TikTok creator (21%) 3.Doctor/nurse (20%) 4.Mobile app/video game developer (19%) 5.Entrepreneur (17%) 6.Artist (16%) 7.Sports athlete (15%) 8.Professional online streamer (15%) 9.Musician (14%) 10.Teacher (14%)”
- hvb2 1y ago
  Sure, but you might compare those people with people winning a lottery. You don't see the failures that are way more common
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
This article is wild. I love it when rich people tell you 1) they've been asleep for a decade and 2) their politics are insane. he was especially struck by stories from young factory employees. Many of them said they could not support themselves by working at Ford alone. “When I met with my entry factory workers, they were saying [they] had to have three jobs.” So, the thing people have been saying in public for 10 years, is a surprise to you? Farley described a revelation about the erosion of what blue-collar work used to represent—stability, pride, and a single income that could support a family. Oh no. Our conservative values! We're going to lose our base! Dimon called America the “bastion of freedom, arsenal of democracy,” and argued that the country had “gotten bogged down and made a lot of mistakes in how to grow our economy for the benefit of all Americans.” He urged Farley to keep fighting against what he called America becoming a “nation of compliance and box-checking.” There's so much here. "arsenal of democracy" is a wild phrase considering how many nations we've destroyed in the name of (but not by actually supporting) democracy (to say nothing of our current administration being anti-democracy). "gotten bogged down" - by what, corporate profits and CEO bonuses? All the money was flying in your face so you couldn't see the 50-year downward trend in wages and upward trend in cost of living, healthcare, education? And then "keep fighting against what he called America becoming a “nation of compliance and box-checking." - so, after corporations have destroyed the country's middle and lower classes (and environment), deregulation will save us?!? He warned that millions of well-paid jobs are going unfilled because they require specialized skills. Putting the salaries for these jobs at $100,000 and above, Farley argued that they require training. This part is amazing too. He's actually admitting that there is a wage gap. I mean, why would anyone do 5 years of training to become a diesel mechanic at $65k/yr, when they can do a 2 week bootcamp and become a JavaScript programmer for $120k? He said there’s a general attitude of frustration, a sense of “How the hell do we fix this?” A whole lotta people have been shouting the answers for decades. You haven't been listening because you were all too busy stuffing profits down your bank account.
- glompers 1y ago
  Arsenal of democracy is something that Detroit specifically was called during WWII, so historically it isn't a wild phrase. Ford Motor Company itself built complete B-24 heavy bombers too. Edit: also an FDR quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy
tennisflyi 1y ago
I listened to the podcast for this pretty much and then looked for entry level jobs. Zero

84 points by ripe 1y ago

kotaKat 1y ago

Now imagine if you could make affordable sedans again, Jim. How does Gen Z afford a $50,000 electric SUV?

RankingMember 1y ago
Unfortunately sedans and hatches are just about completely out for the domestic automakers- they sold poorly and were discontinued. The reasons behind poor sales are surely multi-faceted, but, for Ford in particular, they didn't help matters with quality issues like the "Powershift" dual-clutch automatic, which was flawed from the beginning and left a lot of Focus and Fiesta owners (both now discontinued in the US) with a bad taste in their mouth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_PowerShift_transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_PowerShift_transmission
- floatrock 1y ago
  domestic sedans and hatches sold poorly and were discontinued. Quality might have some small piece there, but there's other factors like: - large trucks & SUVs are more profitable - there's import restrictions on that category so it has a certain insulation from foreign competition - US car companies are really just banks that happen to make cars -- "cash is king" was for our dads, now if you want a deal it's "take our corporate 20-year financing on an asset that will be fully depreciated in 8"
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  The root cause is CAFE regulations and the penalty for small-footprint vehicles. You get more profit if you don't have to make higher efficiency cars rather than cheaper trucks. You get more profit if you make larger trucks rather than smaller. The optimal solution is to make cars undesirable with poor quality or stop building them altogether by pretending they're trucks (PT Cruiser, all XUVs) and make smaller trucks unavailable.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
1970-01-01 1y ago
Nobody is buying new electric SUVs and saying the words "it was in my affordable range" They buy it used when its half-priced or lower, around $25k, or lease it.
josefresco 1y ago
Ford Maverick starts at around $27K. It's not a sedan but it's not $50K.
- kotaKat 1y ago
  Yeah, and it was a $19k truck with a hybrid, and now it’s $29k with the I4.

colechristensen 1y ago

That Ford CEO is stupid. There's no "shortage" of workers. Corporations are expecting other people to train their employees past entry level and pay these people with midlevel experience like badly paid unskilled laborers. Nobody is investing years of their time and large sums of money to get trained up for a shitty job? SURPRISE SURPRISE If you won't take an average person with no knowledge of your industry and train them to be an expert while on the job, the problem is you, not everybody else.

freedomben 1y ago
I don't disagree, but I do think the modern culture of company hopping is contributing to this. As a leader entrusted to make good decisions for the company, you must consider this reality. At a previous company we hired a lot of junior engineers with the idea that our relatively high pay and reasonably good work would help us build a strong generation of seniors a few years down the road. What we mostly found was that we spent a ton of money and our sr eng time training and sharpening them, only for the vast majority of them to leave after 1 to 3 years. As I've gotten more into hiring, it's not at all surprising to me now as this is just clearly in the culture. To be clear I'm not blaming the employees, in fact I blame ridiculously stupid HR practices for the last 20 years because they built a structure in which the only way to get a raise was to leave the company, and that was also often the best way to get promoted too.
- asimovfan 1y ago
  "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs?
  - freedomben 1y ago
    > "modern culture of company hopping".. don't you mean simply going to another workplace for better wages? Yes that's what I mean, though I was making the argument from the perspective of the employer. Didn't mean mean any shade with "company hopping" (I've done that in the past because it was the best thing for me and my career, and I stand by those decisions, so I don't mean them with any negative connotations from the employee perspective at least, and from the employer perspective it's their own damn fault though they rarely ever recognize it). > when you say "ridiculously stupid HR practices" don't you mean not paying them as much? Yes, not paying them as much as another company would offer, plus being stingy with promotion opportunities (like from jr to mid, mid to sr, etc). > do you really think it's a "cultural" thing to change jobs? Yes absolutely, a culture born out of changing realities/incentives. That's not to say it wouldn't switch back if companies started rewarding loyalty again, but it won't spin on a dime.

nerdsniper 1y ago

> Ford’s signature element in its new labor agreement was to get full wages to entry-level workers. But beyond that, he began looking at the labor shortage in trade work, starting with technicians.“Old-timers in our plants were saying, ‘It’s no longer a career, Mr. Farley. Working at Ford is no longer a career.’” He warned that millions of well-paid jobs are going unfilled because they require specialized skills. Putting the salaries for these jobs at $100,000 and above, Farley argued that they require training. “You can’t work on a diesel F-150 if you haven’t been trained for five years, at a minimum five years,” Farley noted. It’s not a demand problem—there’s plenty of work—but a dire shortage of young people choosing and staying in the trades. I looked into this a bit more, because I wanted to understand how much the Ford CEO's posited solution rested on "you can earn a living if you do a different job!" vs. "You can earn a living at any full-time job at my company". In 2023, the new agreement Ford made with UAW: - Increased starting wages by 68%, from $17 to $28 an hour. - New workers reach the top pay rate in three years, a significant improvement from the previous eight-year progression. - Top wage increased to over $40 an hour.

ZephyrBlu 1y ago
Pretty crazy improvement, seems like he's putting his money where his mouth is
- justin66 1y ago
  Once those UAW workers achieve seniority they might be able to afford a very small house.
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    In fairness, homes in Detroit can be quite affordable. There are quite a few 2,000 sq. ft. homes listed for <$150,000 that may be 80 years old but are updated with a modern interior look. These would be affordable to a 22-year old factory worker making $80,000 ($40/hr) with no college debt, even if they didn't perfectly optimize their budget. Good school districts are likely to be less affordable though, but cost of raising children is a whole other can of worms.

wyldfire 1y ago

This epiphany is really just manifestation of many things like gasoline-on-fire stock buybacks [1] [2]. [1] https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ [2] https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1399&context=honorscollege_theses https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

phtrivier 1y ago
From [1] > The growing wedge between productivity and typical workers’ pay is income going everywhere but the paychecks of the bottom 80% of workers. If it didn’t end up in paychecks of typical workers, where did all the income growth implied by the rising productivity line go? Two places, basically. It went into the salaries of highly paid corporate and professional employees. And it went into higher profits (returns to shareholders and other wealth owners). This concentration of wage income at the top (growing wage inequality) and the shift of income from labor overall and toward capital owners (the loss in labor’s share of income) are two of the key drivers of economic inequality overall since the late 1970s. This part: > returns to shareholders and other wealth owners My understanding is that "other wealth owners" include... pensioners (through pension funds), is that correct ? Beside the sheer greed of shareholders, how much does the curve boil down to "companies have to use revenues to pay current workers and previous workers, and we make new 'previous workers' every year" ?

ratelimitsteve 1y ago

For this to be the CEO of Ford in particular is interesting because this is part of their founding narrative. Whether it holds up to historical scrutiny isn't something I can answer but the lore is that Henry Ford purposely paid more than market for his laborers with the idea that he'd get his pick and then those workers would then buy Fords with that money because they knew they were the best cars built by the best workers with the most experience because they stayed at Ford their whole careers.

nickdothutton 1y ago
Wasn't there some law suit from Chrysler, who tried to _stop_ him doing that? Presumably because it would give workers too much wage setting power in the market?
- jkestner 1y ago
  It was the Dodge brothers back when they were minority owners of Ford, and it was the case that poisoned us with “fiduciary duty to the shareholder”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    what's wild is that it could be argued that this was in the shareholders' best interest as well, because it was in the best interest of the health of the company, but somehow that doesn't satisfy a "fiduciary duty" When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope
    - deaux 1y ago
      > When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope It's not worth asking, as they're lying and they know it. It does not mean every decision made has to be to maximize shareholder wealth. As you're pointing out, even if incorrectly interpreted as such, any decision could be justified as doing so besides outrageous cases of intentionally tanking the company. This, in turn, is why no business gets prosecuted over this either.

techdmn 1y ago

Seems like a good time to mention my old stand-by: There is no such thing as a labor shortage. There may very well be a shortage of qualified people willing to work under the conditions and for the compensation a company would like to provide. When stated that way you can see that there are several levers to pull, the most obvious being compensation.

nerdsniper 1y ago
99% of the time, I agree with you. But hypothetically, what would you call a situation where 20 companies would all be willing to pay salaries of $1 million/year to fill 10,000 open positions that required 5 years of training, but there are only 5,000 people who have that training? Would that be a "labor shortage"? It seems your solution works for companies willing to pay more to poach from other companies, but might not work in situations where all of them need more skilled labor now. Also, the $1M/year illustrates a point...why not $10 million or $100 million/year? At some point, the salaries are indeed "high enough" but the skills still just aren't available to hire.
- baby_souffle 1y ago
  > At some point, the salaries are indeed "high enough" but the skills still just aren't available to hire. But the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out, no?
  - culturestate 1y ago
    In a perfectly efficient market, yes, but the market is notably not perfectly efficient. People make decisions about which career(s) to pursue or not pursue based on a huge variety of factors that stretch far beyond money. There is absolutely no scenario in which you could convince me to train as e.g. an underwater welder, no matter how much cash you’re offering.
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    Sure. But the GP is arguing that "there's no such thing as a labor shortage". I'm trying to determine what their definition of "labor shortage" is. Perhaps the GP believes that the term itself is meaningless, or perhaps they believe that no current real-world situation fits their definition. So I created a hypothetical situation to illustrate what, to me, is a clear example of a temporary labor shortage. As you say, "the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out" ... and I'd say that's true, but until it gets sorted out, the situation can reasonably be described as a "labor shortage".

Psillisp 1y ago

“And there I was sitting on my yacht, middle of September — when I had an epiphany. My workers are poor, but why…”

Psillisp 1y ago
Italian boot leather just tastes better.

bilekas 1y ago

> But beyond that, he began looking at the labor shortage in trade work, starting with technicians. It's amazing how there can be labour shortages, yet companies still don't pay people a living wage. I thought the market was supposed to be all based around supply and demand. This just shows how out of touch these CEO's are. They should work a year on the lowest salaried employee of their company for a while.

sieep 1y ago
The market will follow supply and demand at its equilibrium, which clearly we are not at. The question is: what is preventing it from reaching that point?

1970-01-01 1y ago

Finally, someone at the top realizing how unrealistic new career paths are. They must have a solid step on a career ladder. This includes the daily cashflow to stick with it and actually make it to that 2nd step. If you continue to jerk them around with minimum wage jobs, everyone will regret it.

constantcrying 1y ago

It is ridiculous to have American workers and Chinese workers doing essentially the same job, at the same quality, while their salaries differ enormously. American (and European) automotive companies will never be able to compete long term in any market which allows competition between Chinese and American (or European) cars. The labor of an auto worker is not worth that much and only by banning competition can American auto manufacturing survive short term.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Maybe China is the one that will find their labor compensation unsustainable?
- constantcrying 1y ago
  In a world with a globalized economy it is a total abnormality that workers who are globally average are getting compensated far above the global average salary. Workers who have such demands can only exist because of very specific historical circumstances. Chinese workers are much closer to earning what you would expect the globally average worker to earn.
  - dcrazy 1y ago
    This sounds like an economically naïve take that ignores those realities of local labor markets, relative purchasing power, and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      Then give your theory why American workers deserve many times the wages of a Chinese worker, performing identical tasks to the same standards. >local labor markets, relative purchasing power Reverse causality. >and all the other reasons that underpin the theory of specialization in the first place. If you are specializing in something and someone else does everything you do better than you than the theory of specialization tells you that ...

ramesh31 1y ago

Just tell them to go live in a van down by the River Rouge, Mr. Farley.

nerdsniper 1y ago
It's interesting that myself, and a non-insignificant number of other people, would take an option like this if it were legal. It would certainly make vacations much more affordable to be able to bring my home with me and not pay for an AirBNB/hotel + rental car/ubers! However, to someone for whom rent is an onerous expense, vans and box trucks are prohibitively expensive, especially when you consider 10 year TCO.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >It's interesting that myself, and a non-insignificant number of other people, would take an option like this if it were legal. Pretty much everything that makes housing/living unaffordable is a result of intentional regulatory decisions between about 1960 and 2000 (with the biggest exception I can think of being the coopting of the IBC by various product manufactures, that picked up in the 2010s and beyond). You can't live in a van or other mobile thing because zoning. You can't build a non-mobile thing by the river because wetlands. And even if you could the thing you want to build can't be build because the rules and the codes are riddled with carve outs to make work for well lobbied industries.
- pibb_xtra_ 1y ago
  God I wish I could live by a river. Sadly they’re all toxic now it seems.
silverquiet 1y ago
Fun note, Jim Farley is indeed a cousin of Chris Farley.
- runlaszlorun 1y ago
  That's too funny. Having just looked, the resemblance is totally there.

hn_throw_250926 1y ago

You guys really are gullible if you think this is some good hearted gesture. Follow the money.

mwkaufma 1y ago

(CEO in a hot dog costume): we're all trying to find the guy who did this!

whatever1 1y ago

Why would I learn my father’s trade when I can see all day in TikTok all of these people doing GRWM with fancy fits and making matcha lattes at their super fancy corporate offices, or others becoming rich by having enough likes and followers, or others having lambos from day trading? Now that I see other peoples idealized lives 24/7, I want THAT. In the meantime I will work a 3 times/week 4 hour shift at Starbies. ——- Related: ——- “Whop’s 2024 survey gathered insights from 910 U.S. Gen Alpha across the U.S. aged between 12-15 years old. Participants selected all careers they were aspiring towards. 1.YouTuber (32%) 2.TikTok creator (21%) 3.Doctor/nurse (20%) 4.Mobile app/video game developer (19%) 5.Entrepreneur (17%) 6.Artist (16%) 7.Sports athlete (15%) 8.Professional online streamer (15%) 9.Musician (14%) 10.Teacher (14%)”

hvb2 1y ago
Sure, but you might compare those people with people winning a lottery. You don't see the failures that are way more common

0xbadcafebee 1y ago

This article is wild. I love it when rich people tell you 1) they've been asleep for a decade and 2) their politics are insane. he was especially struck by stories from young factory employees. Many of them said they could not support themselves by working at Ford alone. “When I met with my entry factory workers, they were saying [they] had to have three jobs.” So, the thing people have been saying in public for 10 years, is a surprise to you? Farley described a revelation about the erosion of what blue-collar work used to represent—stability, pride, and a single income that could support a family. Oh no. Our conservative values! We're going to lose our base! Dimon called America the “bastion of freedom, arsenal of democracy,” and argued that the country had “gotten bogged down and made a lot of mistakes in how to grow our economy for the benefit of all Americans.” He urged Farley to keep fighting against what he called America becoming a “nation of compliance and box-checking.” There's so much here. "arsenal of democracy" is a wild phrase considering how many nations we've destroyed in the name of (but not by actually supporting) democracy (to say nothing of our current administration being anti-democracy). "gotten bogged down" - by what, corporate profits and CEO bonuses? All the money was flying in your face so you couldn't see the 50-year downward trend in wages and upward trend in cost of living, healthcare, education? And then "keep fighting against what he called America becoming a “nation of compliance and box-checking." - so, after corporations have destroyed the country's middle and lower classes (and environment), deregulation will save us?!? He warned that millions of well-paid jobs are going unfilled because they require specialized skills. Putting the salaries for these jobs at $100,000 and above, Farley argued that they require training. This part is amazing too. He's actually admitting that there is a wage gap. I mean, why would anyone do 5 years of training to become a diesel mechanic at $65k/yr, when they can do a 2 week bootcamp and become a JavaScript programmer for $120k? He said there’s a general attitude of frustration, a sense of “How the hell do we fix this?” A whole lotta people have been shouting the answers for decades. You haven't been listening because you were all too busy stuffing profits down your bank account.

glompers 1y ago
Arsenal of democracy is something that Detroit specifically was called during WWII, so historically it isn't a wild phrase. Ford Motor Company itself built complete B-24 heavy bombers too. Edit: also an FDR quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_of_Democracy

tennisflyi 1y ago

I listened to the podcast for this pretty much and then looked for entry level jobs. Zero