The United Auto Workers has made it official: Its 41,000 members at Ford Motor Co. voted to accept the tentative agreement, the union announced Wednesday.

Results concluded Tuesday at the 58 UAW-Ford locals.

The final tally after two weeks is 63 percent in favor of the agreement with 22,031 “yes” votes to 37 percent voting against or 12,957 “no” votes, including 4,243 skilled trades voting in favor and 2,268 against. Total number of votes cast was 34,988, according to The Detroit News.

“I am pleased with the strong support for this agreement from UAW Ford members. I believe UAW Ford workers understood the importance of each and every vote,” said UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, head of the union’s Ford Department.

“That was evident in the high voter turnout with 85 percent of the overall membership voting, and at locals like Kansas City, where more than 80 percent of members voted and more than 90 percent of those voted in favor of the agreement.”

He addressed some of the dissatisfaction shown by members in comments on the UAW-Ford Facebook page during negotiations.

“Working people in this country are clearly frustrated about the inequity in our society. Our members at Ford are frustrated with the economy, the lack of wage increases over the years, outrageous executive compensation and the immorality of Wall Street,” Settles said.

“Through this process, we have developed open and honest debate, along with high participation among our members, and we hope to continue with the debate and activism as we move forward to the 2012 federal election, which is critical not just for our members at Ford, but for all working people in the U.S.”

But the main goal was preserving and adding jobs.

“As the nation’s economy remains stalled and uncertain and its employment rate stagnates, we were able to win an agreement with Ford that will bring auto manufacturing jobs back to the United States from China, Mexico and Japan,” said UAW President Bob King.

Mark Fields, Ford president of the Americas, said, “This agreement is proof that, by working together with our UAW partners and local communities, we can significantly create new jobs, invest in our plants and people, and make a very positive impact on the U.S. economy.

“Our agreement is fair to our employees and it improves our competitiveness in the U.S.”

Ford is planning a conference call with investors Thursday morning to go over the new agreement. The automaker is hoping rating agencies will upgrade its status after securing four years of labor peace with an agreement that keeps Ford’s costs competitive.

Ford now joins General Motors Co. in ratifying a new four-year contract. Chrysler Group LLC has just begun voting on its proposed deal. The first local, representing a transmission complex in Kokomo, Ind., voted 56 percent in favor. Chrysler voting will conclude Oct. 25.

The Ford agreement adds 5,750 new UAW jobs, which brings the total to 12,000 over the course of the agreement with positions previously announced.

“As a result of these negotiations, the UAW and the domestic automakers announced a total of 20,000 direct manufacturing jobs including the creation of 6,400 jobs at GM and 2,100 at Chrysler,” King said. “The American auto industry is on its way back.”

The Ford agreement also includes $16 billion in investment in new vehicles, including $6.2 billion to upgrade plants including Michigan Assembly, AutoAlliance International in Flat Rock, Romeo Engine and some transmission plants.

Outside Michigan, Ford will invest in Kansas City, Louisville, Ky., and Avon Lake, Ohio.

With ratification, workers with a year of seniority will get a $6,000 signing bonus and receive $7,000 in “inflation protection” and other lump-sum payments over the term of the agreement.

Employees are eligible for profit sharing under a new and simpler formula. The first payment will average $3,700 this year.

Entry-level wages were also increased to $19.28 over the term of the agreement.

Ford Motor Co. workers have ratified a tentative labor agreement not necessarily because they liked it, but because many felt it was the best they could get in today’s economy.

As final results from the United Auto Workers locals were reported late Tuesday, it became mathematically clear the agreement had passed after a groundswell of “yes” votes in the final days of voting, reported The Detroit News.

Cementing ratification was a narrow 53 percent approval by about 5,000 members of Local 862 representing workers at the Kentucky Truck and Louisville Assembly plants.

Romeo Engine also approved the deal overwhelmingly : 492 in favor and 128 against. The Sharonville transmission plant in Cincinnati was in favor with a vote of 994 to 354. The Lima, Ohio, engine plant also approved the deal.

The Walton Hills, Ohio, stamping plant that will close by the end of the contract rejected the agreement 273 votes to 44.

The UAW, whose top officials recommended its passage, was expected to confirm the deal’s ratification Wednesday.

Approval of the four-year agreement that keeps Ford’s costs in line with its domestic competitors should prompt a hike in the automaker’s credit rating. Ford is hoping by year-end to return to the investment grade status it lost in 2005.

“That’s the hidden dimension here,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California-Berkeley. Returning to investment grade, he said, will make it “significantly less costly to invest money.”

Last month, a day after General Motors Co. ratified its labor contract, Standard & Poor’s raised GM’s corporate credit rating two notches to “BB+,” saying the deal provided for GM’s continued profitability and cash generation in North America. BB+ is one notch below investment grade.

GM said the new labor deal will only raise its labor costs by 1 percent annually over four years.

S&P said at the time it expects to also raise Ford to “BB+” with a stable outlook if Ford ratified an agreement that does not put it at a disadvantage relative to GM.

When the deal was announced Oct. 4, Ford’s John Fleming, head of labor affairs, said the terms improve the competitiveness of the Dearborn company, and keep labor costs in line with the current $58 an hour in wages and benefits.

Shaiken said investment grade will make Ford even more competitive and likely to invest in the U.S.

The proposed contract was all about jobs and investments: 12,000 jobs including 5,750 entry-level positions not previously announced, as well as $16 billion in investment of which $6.2 billion would go into plants. That includes work that would have been done elsewhere such as China, Japan, Mexico and parts of Europe.

Heading into the final day of voting Tuesday, 63.2 percent of Ford’s 41,000 were in favor of ratification with 16,691 votes in favor and 9,698 rejecting the deal.

The 6,993-vote difference — with about six of 58 locals still to report representing about 9,000 workers — was considered too large for the naysayers to bridge.

Final-day results were still pending from the Avon Lake, Ohio, assembly plant.

Some large locals rejected the deal in early ratification votes, including Michigan Assembly and Chicago Assembly. But the results alarmed many workers and drew larger numbers of employees who approved the pact in later votes, including members at AutoAlliance International in Flat Rock; Dearborn Truck; Twin Cities in St. Paul, Minn.; and Kansas City.

“We got more jobs,” said Paul Vella who works at the Livonia Transmission plant that approved the deal by about 77 percent and is hoping to be awarded future work building an 8-speed transmission when the 4-speed they are making is phased out.

“The economy’s bad and I’m just happy to have a job,” he said.

Wall Street is optimistic the tentative labor agreement between Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers that keeps U.S. labor costs competitive will pass in the final two days of voting.

Ratings agencies have said successful ratification of the vote is a precursor to upgrading Ford’s credit rating. The automaker is hoping to return to investment grade as early as year end, a status it lost in 2006, according to The Detroit News.

Two-thirds of the 41,000 Ford workers have finished their ratification votes and 62 percent are in favor of the four-year pact.

Most of the union locals still to report will not be finished voting until Tuesday — the deadline for all 58 locals.

The agreement requires a simple majority to be ratified, at which point the agreement becomes official. Confirmation of passage is expected Wednesday.

“After some early results appeared to put ratification at risk (vote was 55 percent against early Friday), several large facilities have voted in favor by wide margins, including Dearborn Assembly (62 percent in favor) and Kansas City Assembly (88 percent in favor),” said analyst Rod Lache of Deutsche Bank in a research note Monday.

“It now appears likely the deal will pass, as the remaining 40 percent of the workforce would need to vote approx 70 percent “no” in order to swing the overall outcome.”

Lache said the agreement will keep Ford’s U.S. labor costs relatively flat over four years, ratification removes the risk of a work stoppage and the deal positions Ford well if the auto industry recovers in the U.S.

Additionally, “we believe that this clears one of the final hurdles to the announcement of a meaningful dividend at Ford in the relatively near future,” Lache said.

Brian Johnson at Barclays Capital also said in a research note Monday that approval by Ford workers appears likely.

“Overall, we estimate the tentative contract would add about 70 cents per hour to Ford’s labor costs, or about $70 million annually — assuming only 1,000 skilled trades retire,” Johnson said.

“Higher attrition could lower the net cost further,” Johnson said, noting Ford still has the highest cost per hour because the $58 an hour rate going into the contract was much higher than Chrysler Group LLC’s $49 and General Motors Co. is expected to benefit from greater skilled trades attrition and cuts to legal services.

Barclays estimates a strike would have cost Ford $273 million a day in lost revenue and $71 million a day in lost profit, although some of that would be made up in 2012 with increased overtime, Johnson said.

“Nevertheless, a strike would have delayed any rating agency upgrade or dividend,” Johnson said.

The United Auto Workers said 62 percent of its members have voted in favor of a tentative four- year labor agreement with Ford Motor Co. as of 8:30 p.m. New York time.

The union said 14,845 members at Ford had cast ballots in favor of the labor deal while 9,076 voted against. The UAW didn’t specify the percentage of Ford’s 40,600 hourly employees who have had a chance to vote, reported Bloomberg. Balloting will run through Oct. 18.

The updated tally came after the union said UAW Local 600, the biggest Ford local union, had voted 62 percent to 38 percent in favor of the tentative agreement. Local 600 in 2009 voted against concessions, including a strike ban during this year’s labor negotiations. UAW members at a Claycomo, Missouri, plant also voted 88 percent in favor. The union posted the results on its Facebook page.

“This contract is close to a done deal,” said Harley Shaiken, labor professor at University of California at Berkeley. “Local 600 is pivotal because it’s the largest Ford local and is closely watched by other Ford locals. Both the size and visibility of Local 600 give this contract a major boost.”

Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, was the only U.S. automaker that faced the possibility of a strike in this year’s labor negotiations between the union and U.S. automakers. The UAW agreed to strike bans at General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC as part of the U.S.-backed bankruptcies at the companies. Fiat SpA owns a majority of Chrysler.

“We remain optimistic that the tentative agreement will be approved,” Marcey Evans, a Ford spokeswoman, said today. Jimmy Settles, who heads the union’s Ford department, said in an e- mailed statement that he’s “very optimistic” the tentative contract will be ratified.

The proposed Ford agreement was rejected last week by Ford’s Chicago assembly plant, which builds the Taurus sedan and Explorer sport-utility vehicle, and a factory in Wayne, Michigan, that produces the Focus small car. A metal-stamping plant in Chicago and a parts plant in Saline, Michigan, also turned it down.

On Oct. 14, the overall vote total flipped to approval from rejection after workers at Ford’s Mustang factory in Flat Rock, Michigan, voted in favor of the proposed agreement along with an assembly plant in Minnesota and at a transmission factory in Livonia, Michigan. The Flat Rock factory is to get a second shift to produce the Fusion midsize sedan under the new contract.

“These latest votes reflect workers feeling this is a very good contract in very tough times,” Shaiken said. “If you’re one of the early plants that votes, you’ve got the luxury of saying no. If you’re one of the later plants, you’re looking at a strike.”

Ford has not had a national strike since 1976.

UAW President Bob King said Oct. 12 that he expected members to ratify the agreement reached with Ford on Oct. 4. The company pledged 12,000 new jobs, $6.2 billion in factory upgrades, and bonus and profit-sharing payments this year that total as much as $10,000 per worker. It won’t give raises for senior workers or restore cost-of-living pay increases workers gave up to help Ford survive.

“Times are obviously better for the company and the executives are getting raises, but they don’t want to give anything back to the workers,” Gary Walkowicz, a union official with Local 600 who led a “Vote No” campaign, said Oct. 13. “People feel they deserve more. There is a lot of anger out here.”

The UAW’s Settles, in his statement tonight, said Ford hourly employees had concluded the tentative accord was in their interest.

“The Ford workers voting early on in the process were voting on emotion, but workers in plants with voting later in the process had a chance to learn everything about the agreement and understood how much their votes counted,” Settles said in the e-mail.

Ford earned $9.28 billion in the past two calendar years after $30.1 billion in losses from 2006 through 2008. Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally’s 2010 compensation rose 48 percent to $26.5 million. Ford also awarded him more than $56 million in stock in March for leading the company’s turnaround.

“In early votes, you can vote your anger,” Shaiken said. “In later votes, you start asking, ’What are my options?’”

Ford Motor Co. is boosting its projection for sales of Ford F-150 large pickups equipped with six-cylinder EcoBoost engines, responding to greater than expected demand, Ford truck group marketing manager Doug Scott said Thursday.

Ford had expected that about 40 percent of F-150 pickups sold to individual customers would be equipped with the 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine. “We didn’t think we would be exceeding that target,” Mr. Scott said.

Now, the company expects EcoBoost equipped models will account for about 45 percent of retail F-150 sales going forward, he said. Retail sales of EcoBoost F-150s should total about 100,000 vehicles in 2011, he said. Through the end of September, retail customers had purchased about 75,000 F-150s with the six cylinder engine, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Total Ford large pickup sales, including heavy duty pickups and vehicles sold to fleets, are up nearly 8 percent to 416,388 vehicles for the year through Sept. 30. Rival Detroit brands Chevrolet, GMC and Dodge have racked up larger percentage increases in sales, but the F-series remains the segment leader by a wide margin. Japanese auto makers Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Corp. have suffered sales declines of 11 percent and 12 percent respectively for the year to date.

The large pickup truck market has been dominated by V-8 engines for decades. As recently as two years ago, Ford didn’t offer a six cylinder motor in its F-series lineup.

Pressure from federal regulators to boost fuel efficiency and customer anxiety about volatile gasoline prices have combined to push auto makers to reconsider traditional marketing formulas, including the idea that there’s “no replacement for displacement” in the big pickup market.

Ford launched the EcoBoost engine in the F-150 line in February. During the last few months, sales of EcoBoost models have accounted for about 42 percent of total F-150 sales, Mr. Scott says. EcoBoost equipped F-150s average 18 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, according to federal government ratings, compared to 14 to 17 miles per gallon for eight cylinder models.

Ford’s production of EcoBoost-equipped F-150s should catch up with demand by late 2011 or the first quarter of 2012, Mr. Scott said.

Ratings agency Moody’s Investors Services said Wednesday it is considering upgrading Ford Motor Co.’s debt, on news of the company’s tentative four-year labor agreement with the United Auto Workers.

Wall Street cheered the news, sending Ford’s stock up 4.8 percent, to $10.56. It’s still down 44 percent over its 52-week high of $18.97, according to The Detroit News.

The credit rating agency is also considering a change in General Motors Co.’s credit rating.

Last week, rating agency Standard & Poor’s upgraded GM’s credit rating in response to the company’s new four-year-labor deal. This week, S&P reiterated that it plans to upgrade Ford, if hourly workers approve a similar deal.

Moody’s is considering an upgrade of Ford’s debt, as well as its finance company, Ford Motor Credit. Both are rated sub-investment grade or “junk” status. Ford executives have placed a priority on getting the stock back to investment grade.

“Ford has built a much stronger operating model and financial profile during the past year. We want to determine if it can maintain this position if market conditions become more difficult,” said Bruce Clark, Moody’s senior vice president.

Clark said “we are going to look at Ford and GM side-by-side.”

Chrysler Group LLC has not yet agreed to a tentative pact. It is not publicly traded, but eventually intends to hold an initial public stock offering.

Investors have been bearish on auto stocks and have pummeled GM stock in recent months. GM closed below $20 a share for the first time on Monday and is down 33 percent over its $33 initial public offering price. GM was up 4 percent Wednesday to $22.27.

Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a research note Wednesday that investors should be cautious. “Trading auto stocks in this macro environment is like playing ping-pong in a hurricane,” he wrote.

Moody’s said its initial review of Ford’s UAW contract should allow Ford “to maintain its operating flexibility, fixed cost position, break-even point and liquidity position near current levels.”

Last week, S&P said it was upgrading GM’s corporate credit rating to “BB+” from “BB-” — one notch below investment grade — and it revised GM’s outlook for future ratings to stable from positive.