By Doug Cunningham

Ford Motor Company says 38,000 Ford UAW members have agreed to take the buyouts or early retirements offered by Ford to dramatically cut its workforce. That’s nearly half of Ford’s unionized workers. Ford is also trying to entice thousands of salaried employees to leave the company as it slashes North American jobs. Ford had offered the buyouts to eliminate 30,000 union jobs as it closes some North American plants. Earlier this year GM offered similar buyouts to roughly 34,000 UAW workers there. This is a major historic realignment of the U.S. auto industry, which has suffered declining market share for years in North America. The falling market share and the failure to organize foreign auto plants building cars in North America has hit the United Autoworkers union hard. Combined with the bankruptcy of Delphi, the onetime GM subsidiary, the UAW this year has lost more than 85,000 active members.