Half of Ford's workers bought out

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/29/news/companies/ford_buyouts/?postversion=2006112909

More than half of Ford's workers opt to leave
About 38,000 of auto manufacturer's 75,000 hourly employees in the United States take offers to retire or resign, topping company targets.
November 29 2006: 9:45 AM EST
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- About 38,000 hourly workers - just over half of Ford Motor's U.S. factory work force - have accepted offers to leave the company, according to the automaker.

The greater-than-expected take rate of various severance or retirement packages will allow Ford (Charts) to speed up cost cuts and plant-closing plans as it tries to stem losses in its North American auto operations.

Shares of Ford gained 1.6 percent in early trading in Frankfurt on Wednesday.

The company had set a target of 30,000 voluntary job cuts in September when it announced it was offering its 75,000 workers represented by the United Auto Workers union payments of up to $140,000 to leave the company.

Workers had until Monday to sign up for one of the programs, although they have a week to change their mind. All of those who signed must leave the company by September 2007, when the current labor contract with the UAW expires.

The hourly job cuts do not include a Ford target of trimming 14,000 salaried staff. Some of those workers have already left the company. Ford hopes to convince another 10,000 to take voluntary buyouts, according to the report. If not, the company has said more layoffs will be coming.

Ford announced plans Monday to borrow $18 billion by pledging assets as collateral for loans, an unprecedented requirement that highlights its worsening financial condition.

When Ford announced the staff cut plans in September, the company said it did not expect to return its North American auto units to profitability until 2009, and that it would aim at a U.S. market share of 14 to 15 percent of vehicles sold, a target that could drop it to No. 3 in U.S. sales behind both General Motors (Charts) and Toyota Motor (Charts).

GM has also trimmed nearly 35,000 of its larger U.S. hourly work force of 120,000 workers as it also tries to return its North American auto operations to the black. The Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler (Charts) also has been struggling with losses, although it has yet to announce any staff cut plans.

[FartinMowler]

Where is Norma Rae now? The unions killed your large automotive business and in the process companies didn't pay attention to the fact that like the cigarette companies they should be held accountable for polluting the environment. Companies like Ford have been in Europe for years and knew that they needed to produce cleaner vehicles and they just kept pumping out winners like the Explorer and Escalade. Quality is job one and they kept having recall after recall, they even own companies they could literally duplicate down to the last bolt, like Mazda and Volvo and they still fail.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Canadians are hysterical.

[FartinMowler]

Is that why they keep building auto plants in our country? :rolleyes and our dollar is almost at par with yours even though our population is less?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I repeat: Canadians are hysterical.

I think it was GAsux who once said (maybe directed at AChimp) that Canadians, with their blind patriotism and insecurity, would make great Americans.

[FartinMowler]

blind patriotism and insecurity

Maybe it's self preservation considering we have you at our door.

[Preechr]

Yes, because we are a very threatening neighbor.

You never know when we might invade and start forcing you guys to speak less idiotically and stop behaving so damn French.

Ever stop to consider that there's not that much appealing about living in the Arctic to those that aren't already Canadians?

[FartinMowler]

Ever stop to consider that there's not that much appealing about living in the Arctic to those that aren't already Canadians?

that there's not that much going on in that peanut farm of a brain that's fer sure :/

[Preechr]

Your sentence fragment perplexes me...

Did you just Google Georgia?

[FartinMowler]

It's fragmented from your sentence :rolleyes

Ever stop to consider that there's not that much

You wrote that, and from that I came to the conclusion you might have been shaken as a baby :(

[Archduke Tips]

You are so quick to blame Ford for creating polluting cars. Maybe you don't realize that the Explorer was the #1 selling vehicle that Ford produced. You build what people will buy.

[FartinMowler]

Ford chairman Bill Ford Jr. continues to walk the walk after talking the talk, by announcing in the company's recent corporate citizenship report that the automaker needed to "take appropriate action against global warming."

However, the rhetoric was not supported by any specific plans, just more rhetoric by Ford president and CEO Jacques Nasser, who wrote in the report: "There's no doubt that sufficient evidence exists to move from argument to action."

Again, there was no plan set forth, but Ford Jr. wrote the company has formed an internal task force to study ways to reduce tailpipe emissions.

Ford's attempt at small cars has been horrible and this is because the spent so much time fixing there recalled money makers like the Ford Explorer.

If you look at huge automotive companies Ford is one of the worst when it comes to trying to do "the right thing". The don't care about there workers, they don't care about building environmentally friendly cars until they are pushed into it and they quickly buy up other foreign companies because they know they are failing in the U.S. market.