Ford has told leaders of the United Auto Workers that it still has about 4,200 more hourly workers in its US factories than it needs and it is hoping the latest round of blue-collar buyouts will help shrink that figure.
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Company executives and union officials met behind closed doors on Tuesday and Wednesday to review the automaker’s plan to restructure its North American manufacturing base and discuss progress on the latest buyout efforts aimed at convincing workers to head for the exits voluntarily, the Detroit News reported.
Such tactics are being used to shed around 500 workers at the crossover plant in Oakville, near Toronto in Canada. Ford yesterday said it wants to axe a third body and paint shift at the plant by sweetening a retirement package with extra cash and new car discounts and a local union official estimated that about 650 of the plant’s current 3,000 workers would be eligible.
The automaker last month scrapped plans to add 350 new recruits and 150 workers from the Ford plant in Windsor, Ontario, on a third trim line shift at Oakville and the new CAW union president was quoted yesterday as saying that some had already relocated before being told their jobs were being scrapped.
Oakville began making crossovers three years ago and August sales for the segment were down 12% in the US, according to Autodata. Data made available to just-auto by an independent analyst showed the Oakville-built Lincoln MKX was down 22.5% year on year in August and 4.4% year to date while the Ford Edge was off 2% but up 11.2% year to date. The Ford Flex has only recently been launched so year on year comparisons can’t be made but a US report said its sales slipped 9% from July to August.
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By GlobalDataThe Detroit News said Ford had trimmed its North American hourly work force by about 40% over the past three years through various offers but a recent attempt to cut another 9,000 workers attracted fewer than half to signing up for one of the packages.
It has since announced more plans to cut output at some factories and retool others from truck and SUV production to small cars and crossovers, and made significant cuts to overtime, which, the paper said, it hopes will convince more workers to sign up for the voluntary buyouts this time.
