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Ford should automatically file your claim for you. The only thing you should have to do is certify with MARVIN (either by phone or online). I've never known Ford to not file a claim for us during a mass TLO.

10 years, come August. Any UAW-represented plant that gets additional work because a plant is so overwhelmed with orders would, at least in my opinion, be a good thing for our union brothers and sisters. If the work was to go somewhere else, then leave it as it is and we'll build to our hearts' content. Knowing full well I'm going to get flack for saying this, but 10.7 day in, day out gets real old, real quick. It got old at Dearborn and it's getting old here too. Add in incompetent management and it only makes the problem worse.

LAP currently has less than a 40-day supply on dealer lots. At last check, we had over 38,000 in the order bank. Tons of downtime recently because of a) the weather and b) suppliers just cannot keep up with us. God Forbid they added the Escape anywhere else... no one would have parts... Gas Tanks seem to be the worst, followed by sub-frames. Oh... and we're running 81 JPH, and preparing for the MKC launch, and yet another line speed increase. We're also doing 10.7 most every day (well, at least B-Crew is), and adding super days. Trust us, we'd LOVE for someone to take our overflow... and it's only going to get worse once the MKC launches (rumors of 84-86 JPH, if not more).

Hate to break it to you, but they lied... Here's the actual contract language: Volume III, PP. 82-83, Definition 6: “FNA EBIT” shall mean the Company’s North American income or loss before income taxes excluding extra-ordinary items, other automotive reconciling items (i.e. income/expense on debt and investments and related fair value adjustments) and special reconciling items as determined by the Company, in the manner used to report 2010 Ford North America “Income/Loss before income taxes” in Note 28 of the Company’s 2010 Form 10-K. As in 2010, this definition will result in the exclusion from FNA EBIT of non-operating results that management does not consider when assessing and measuring the operational and financial performance of Ford North America. In the event changes in terminology, reporting requirements or reporting practices (e.g. elimination of Sarbanes-Oxley Act) affect the calculation or public disclosure of FNA EBIT, as defined above, the affected calculation shall be performed in a manner consistent with the disclosure of financial performance to the Company’s shareholders and/or investment analysts of the Company’s operational and financial performance for North America. The sentence in bold specifically excludes one-time items, then in bold and italics net interest expense. It also excludes anything else that is a "special reconciling item". I don't know how this can be made any more clear. Europe's troubles costs US money. China's expansion costs US money. The interest Ford pays on their debt costs US money. Prove me wrong with a $4.45/hour profit share amount. We will never see it that high this year. As I have stated, it will be about the same, if not a little less.

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Special items have been excluded from earnings since the profit sharing plan began in 1982. If you go back to 1999, when Ford completed its sale of the Associates (a banking group sold to Citi), they had a one-time gain of over $15B from that sale. That year, Ford made over $22B in profits. However, Profit Sharing for that year was only $8,000, due to the fact it was excluded from automotive sector profits. For 2011, the tax valuation allowance (since it was treated as an extraordinary one-time item) was not figured into our profit sharing, even though it resulted in a gain. Gain or loss, special items are excluded. Any special items, extraordinary one-time items and charges related to the automotive sector of the entire business are deducted. The tax valuation allowance was used as a way of not paying income taxes on the billions of dollars Ford was losing at the time. That's part of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and most major corporations use that as a way of getting out of taxes on money that, even though earned by the company, can be attributed to a loss on the company's bottom line. I'm no accountant, so I don't quite know how GAAP affects the valuation of certain of the company's financials. With how much financial data Ford reports, I don't think I'd want to, either. I figured profit sharing the same as everyone else. Most plants of the company work a 40-hour schedule, with few overtime opportunities. Rawsonville, DTP, LAP, Sterling and Van Dyke are some examples where insane OT was worked. Basing the dollar figure of $3.6844 on a 2,080 hour work year, which most people put in, the average came out to be $7,663.55. Again, even though FNA EBIT was reported as $8.3B, special items and net interest expense are deducted from this amount BEFORE the profit share fund is figured.

Doubtful. AWS is too popular with the company and it wouldn't make sense to do an AWS with 2 crews.

The only reason I am bringing Europe into the equation is because of the term "Special Items". It has been reported in Ford's 2013 Financial results that, so far this year, the automotive sector of their business has taken $1.257B in special one-time charges. These charges are lumped together into one category on Ford's balance sheet. If you look at the Ford 2012 Annual Report to Shareholders (http://corporate.ford.com/doc/ar2012-2012%20Annual%20Report.pdf), page 21, there is a breakdown of how the special items are figured. Had it not been for a large gain in one of the businesses Ford consolidated last year, special items would have added up to appx. $800M. Also notice, on the report, there is a section there titled "Belgium Pension Settlement". Granted, there is no charge in this category for 2012, but notice how it DOES figure into the special items for 2011. Belgium is in Europe, hence why Europe's special items are important. Europe's and China/Asia-Pacific's special items (related to the automotive sector) will report here in 2013's report. This is why I am saying their special items are significantly important to us, due to the fact "special items" are not separated out by region. They may be separated in the line items of the special items table (as required by law), but as a group, they are lumped together to produce one number attributable to the company's automotive sector. When it comes time to figure our profit sharing, you take the FNA EBIT figure and subtract ALL AUTOMOTIVE-RELATED SPECIAL ITEMS (again, whatever charges are lumped into this category, regardless of market). Then, after subtracting Net Interest Expense (another category where our profit share takes a hit), you come to the average amount per employee that will go into the profit share fund. This amount is significantly lower than what the papers and the media want to report. Everyone last year was saying how the average check would be $8,300 before taxes. In reality, thanks to special items and NII, it was around $7,300, or $1,000 LESS than what everyone reported. I had profit sharing figured down to a nickel's difference last year ($3.6322 per hour versus the actual of $3.6844), a month and a half before a figure was even reported. No one believed me because they all thought I was crazy talking about "special items" and "net interest expense". Turns out the only thing I was off on was the employees in the Ford system, and not any of my other numbers. I don't mean to sound like I'm a know-it-all when I talk about stuff like this, but I do know my numbers, figures and legalese. It's an area I strongly excel in.

Aha Use www.hronline.ford.com instead of web.hronline.ford.com. Ever since the redesigned site came out the "www" has been accessible outside of the Ford intranet. I exclusively use "www" instead of "web" and have no problems.

What I meant by this statement was this: - The "Too bad" statement is worded correctly. What it means is that all company-related special items, regardless of market, are figured against our profit sharing. The statement was meant to ask why our reps did not petition the company for only special items only attributable to the North American market to be counted against our profit share earnings. As it stands right now, all special items (as of 3Q 2013, $1.257B) are counted against us, of which the majority of that figure is Europe's woes and the expansion in China/Asia Pacific, neither of which has anything to do with us. - The reps did not bargain to have special items excluded from FNA EBIT - this is a company money-saving tactic. Although special items have been excluded from earnings for years, it is just now becoming more apparent as to how much this is saving the company. At $1,257 per employee, the company is saving approximately $58,450,500 by excluding the special items from our sharing. IMO, that's chump change compared to what FNA is bringing in in profits. FNA has only had appx. $125M in special items this year. Call me greedy, but I'd prefer the extra $1,100 on my profit share check were these exclusions not in place. However, you are correct in saying that Europe's troubles (aside from the special items) have no impact on FNA profits. Our PS comes directly from FNA, and nowhere else. You are also correct in saying that the average profit share is $1,000 per $1B of FNA profit, provided that FNA makes $1.25B for the entire year. If that threshold is not reached, then there is no profit share for the year. It is not, however, $100 per million - it is $1 of profit share per $1M of profit.

I'm calm, I'm just a little mad that Europe's problems end up falling on us. But Sparky, you need to remember that "Special Items" are excluded from our PS. So even if FNA does make $9.1B for 2013, a minimum of $1,257 will be taken off of that number as special items (again, regardless of market) are subtracted from our sharing.

Did you read this part of my post? I am one of the few who actually DOES read the contract. I said we were LOSING money from profit sharing thanks to these special items, not GAINING it.

From these places: -0-. IIRC, the ONLY vehicle that is imported to the US for sale is the Transit Connect, which is built in Turkey.

I had a feeling we were going to get screwed somewhere in PS for this year... FNA (thru Q3 2013) profit: $7.079 Billion Special Items: $1.257 Billion Net EBIT: $5.822 Billion Thanks to those special items (of which most [~700M] are related to Europe, but we get charged for), we're so far losing $1,257 off of an average check of $7,079. Too bad the reps who thought of this "ingenious" profit sharing program didn't think to exclude the special items of the one money-losing market Ford is still doing business in. Don't think Europe's woes apply to us? Think again. Page 86 of Volume III (SUB/Profit Share agreement) specifically states they exclude special items from FNA EBIT, regardless of market. We still have one quarter to go, but don't look for this year's check to be bigger than last year's - it'll be about the same, if not a little less. Still (depending on 4Q results), expect the per-hour profit share to be about $3.4245/hour. On 2080 hours, this equals about $7,122.96. If you want a quick way to figure your hours (instead of going thru all of your paystubs), go to Labor. They have this information at the ready for everyone and it won't take but 2 minutes for them to pull it up.

It usually comes 1-2 weeks after your anniversary date. Mine was 1 pay period after the anniversary date. However, some had to wait up to 4 weeks for (still) unknown reasons.

Sounds typical... At least its not as long as it was here at LAP... we had a 12-month freeze on bumps. It's only to ensure trained people remain on their trained jobs while a launch is in progress. Bumping all over the place by many employees at the same time creates quality issues, something I'm sure neither the company or the UAW want with the Fusion.