Industriall European Trade Union (IETU) says the emergency meeting called by Ford with its unions at 09:00 (CET) in Belgium tomorrow (24 October) could escalate into a wider Continent labour issue.
Speculation in Belgium is centering on possible job implications as several unions are summoned to discuss the future of Ford’s potential assembly of the successors to the Galaxy and S-Max models at its Genk plant.
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Ford is declining to confirm the meeting but IETU policy adviser, Wolf Jacklein, told just-auto this morning the Belgian Works Council would see the automaker at 09:00 (CET) at the Genk site.
“If there should be an announcement of this kind, then obviously the European Works Council will be informed,” Jacklein told just-auto from Belgium. “It can’t be just a Belgian thing.
“I am in close contact with all our national affiliates – for the time being it is only speculation. There was a new model allocated to the site, so it is not very clear what the strategy is.”
The IETU policy adviser noted the situation with Ford in Europe was “not the best,” but cited the automaker’s far better performance on a global level.
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By GlobalDataFord, which employs around 4,300 staff at the Genk site, confined itself to noting to just-auto: “We are not going to comment on discussions with our unions.”
The Genk site is also home to a supplier park with thousands more employees, although these are not exclusively working for Ford.
Should there be any job implications for Genk, the move would come hard on the heels of General Motors‘ decision to axe its Antwerp plant at the end of 2010, a closure that saw more than a thousand employees made redundant.
Brussels-based, IETU, is a result of the merger between the European Metalworkers Federation and chemical, mining and engineering body, EMCEF and textile workers union, ETUF-TCL.
See also: UK: New Mondeo a ‘critical variable’ in Ford Genk decision – analyst
