Land Rover owner Ford has given 8,000 workers at its Solihull plant in England a stark choice: come up with a plan to improve productivity within two months or you’ll lose your jobs.
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According to the website for the local Birmingham Post and Evening Mail newspapers, the US giant’s most senior executive in Europe delivered the ultimatum to shocked management and unions at the famous Lode Lane factory.
Mark Fields reportedly demanded that both sides come up by August with a “road map” for big improvements to bring the plant up to world class standards. Without agreement, the 4×4 car making plant would be starved of investment and left at serious risk of closure, he said.
Fields reportedly added: “The transformation of Solihull into a competitive facility is fundamental to Land Rover’s future success and I have given the plant eight weeks to draw up the road map. I will review the road map in two months time and if it truly is a firm commitment to continuous future improvement it will have my full support and endorsement.”
The website said some observers immediately drew parallels with BMW’s dramatic announcement six years ago when it warned that the axe was hovering over the Rover plant at Longbridge – that precipitated the crisis which eventually led to BMW ditching its Rover operations.
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By GlobalDataAccording to the website, Matthew Taylor, Land Rover managing director, who was in the meeting with Fields, said there had been a “very frank but extremely positive set of discussions between management and unions” and added that both sides had been told that it was “crunch time for Solihull”.
He reportedly added that the company was in one of the fastest growing markets in the car industry with sports utility vehicles set to rise by 40% over the next five years but warned that Solihull would have to take significant measures to bring its competitiveness and quality up to world standards.
Asked what would happen if the work force was unable to agree the way forward in the next two months, Mr Taylor told the newspaper: “Nobody is contemplating such a scenario. If we are unable to produce a plant that has world class standards, investment decisions will be made on where we are and inevitably it will mean the steady decline of investment coming into the plant and put pressure on long term viability.”
The website report said the plant has suffered poor industrial relations over the last few years with demands for productivity and quality improvements being the subject of tortuous negotiations. There was strike action earlier this year over pay and flexibility issues.
The workforce reportedly was infuriated last summer when Ford announced that it was switching production of the new Freelander to the Jaguar plant on Merseyside by 2006.
Dave Osbourne, senior TGWU national negotiator, on Thursday told the website: “It is wrong to say all of this has to be done in eight weeks. We are talking about a road-map for on-going discussions with the objective of reaching best-in-class levels in five years.”
