UK automotive workers’ union Unite said it wanted “full involvement in the negotiations” over the job losses of 275 managerial, supervisory and engineering staff announced by Ford on Wednesday (26 September).

The job losses, part of a Europe-wide cull of “several hundred”, according to Ford, will be voluntary at the automaker’s Warley headquarters in Essex, and at the research and development centre at Dunton, also in Essex.

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“In total, 500 such jobs are going across Ford’s Europe operations, as the company faces massive losses,” the union said in a statement.

Unite’s national officer for the automotive industry, Roger Maddison said: “Unite will be asking that its officers and reps have full involvement in this process which will be voluntary. It represents a 10% cut in the 2,500-strong UK managerial and engineering workforce.

“We had a meeting with the company yesterday (25 September) and we stressed two main points. Firstly, that the work that these employees are doing is not, at some future stage, outsourced from the UK.

“We are also concerned that there is a coherent business case in going forward. We don’t want the remaining managerial and engineering staff having excess workloads imposed on them, once their colleagues have left the company.

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”Ford has said that it has excess capacity in these areas and we have to recognise the challenging economic conditions that Ford is facing, with losses of US$1bn on its European operations this year.

“Naturally, we don’t like any loss of employment and we will be negotiating the best possible redundancy packages for those wishing to leave.”

Ford employs about 15,000 workers in the UK, Unite added.