UAW and Ford talk in the park

The United Auto Workers union wants to organize suppliers that will occupy Ford Motor Co.'s first integrated manufacturing campus in the U.S., a $250 million complex that will employ up to 1,000. The supplier park will service Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant when it introduces two all-new vehicles — the Ford CrossTrainer SUV and Ford Five Hundred fullsize sedan — in 2004. Nine suppliers have 9-year leases to bunk in. But not all are unionized. The union helped with the planning of the park. Ford has not required the suppliers be unionized, but is urging them to be “union friendly.”