8,700 Ford Kentucky Truck plant members join UAW strike

United Auto Workers expanded its ongoing strikes against major automobile manufacturers Wednesday after a Ford truck plant in Kentucky joined the strike, the union announced.

About 8,700 workers from the company’s Truck Assembly Plant in Louisville, Kentucky — where F-250 and F-550 trucks are built as well as some SUVs — walked off the job in a surprise strike Wednesday. The facility is Ford’s largest and most profitable.

The union said that Ford has refused to negotiate further bargaining demands, resulting in the expanded strike.

The striking workers are demanding increased wages and improved working conditions in protracted negotiations with the…