More Jobs To Go At Victorian Ford Plants

[f-wolf]

Jobs to go at Ford plants in Broadmeadows and Geelong. February 6, 2014 - 2:05PM

Another 300 jobs will be cut at Ford’s Victorian manufacturing plants, as the company continues to reduce its Australian operations.

Ford employees and union representatives were told on Thursday morning that production levels at Broadmeadows and Geelong would be trimmed about one-third by June.

The move will trigger another round of job losses between May and the end of the year.

"We briefed them on the fact that as we continue to transform our business in Australia that we will continue to match production with demand," Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood said.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, fears Ford will need to undertake forced redundancies to cut 300 jobs.

National vehicle division secretary Dave Smith said most factory workers had intended to see out Ford’s 2016 closure.

“Ford will struggle to find the numbers on a voluntary basis,” he said.

A survey conducted by the union last November showed 96 per cent of Ford workers hoped to stay with the car marker until it closed its Victorian operations in 2016.

‘‘They might have hoped they had some sort of job security until then, and obviously this has thrown a spanner in the works for them,’’ he said.

‘‘All that uncertainty will come back again ... it will be very stressful for the workers and their families, not knowing if they will still have a job.’’

Mr Smith said the latest round of job cuts would mount even more stress on the Victorian components supply industry.

He criticised the Abbott government’s stance of refusing to support industries, workers and their families, and said Ford’s announcements highlighted the need to help Toyota.

“This reaffirms the ridiculous damaging actions of the government, in not supporting auto-workers in a softening economy,’’ he said.

‘‘The Prime Minister needs to have a serious look at himself, show some serious leadership, and back Toyota and back the 30,000 jobs in Victoria that rely on it.’’

Ford says that as the market continues to shift, it remained on track to launch its new Territory SUV and Falcon sedan models later this year, which would be manufactured in Victoria.

"Importantly, we are still committed to our transformation of the business and we are increasing the number of offerings in our showroom and we are refreshing our line-ups," Mr Sherwood said.

In May last year, Ford announced its plants at Broadmeadows and Geelong will close their doors in October 2016, and 1160 jobs would be lost.

More than 1000 employees work at Ford’s Broadmeadows plant, and 840 work at Geelong.

Victorian Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews said the ‘‘devastating news’’ was another blow to the state’s economy, and accused the government of doing nothing to help.

‘‘Every day, our state is losing jobs. Our biggest companies are closing their doors, shops are shutting and the economy is hurting,’’ he said.

‘‘Denis Napthine did nothing to save these jobs at Ford.’’

Victoria used to be ‘‘number one’’, Mr Andrews said. ‘‘Now we’ve fallen behind.’’

Ford’s announcement on Wednesday comes after the car maker’s attempts to adjust production to its slowing sales.

Last year, 750 of Ford’s 1200 manufacturing employees were stood down on half-wages during planned shutdown days, with the option of topping up their salaries using annual leave entitlements.

Sales of Australian-produced Fords have halved since 2009, from 54,087 sales to 29,550

Geelong mayor Darryn Lyons said he was sad to see such an important part of Geelong’s modern history diminish its presence ‘‘in such a short space of time’’.

Cr Lyons said he would be seeking an assurance from Ford Australia that it would stand by its plan to maintain manufacturing at Geelong until 2016.

“I will be writing to Ford’s head of global operations seeking detail on Ford’s future plans, including their intentions for the Geelong site once manufacturing operations ultimately do cease,’’ he said.

“If necessary I will fly to Ford’s head office to take this conversation to them."

from,

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-news/jobs-to-go-at-ford-plants-in-broadmeadows-and-geelong-20140206-32349.html

[Dagabond]

Dont know whether the news is sadder or the fact that it now just seems like old news that nobody cares about...

[Rab]

Bit of both - will be a bit of a juggle for those still there trying to work out when to stay and when to go.

"Should I leave with this wave with whatever package is offered and look for work in a bad environment or hope to stick it out til the end for a better package and look for work in a really, really bad environment?"

Would be funny (sort of) if Ford have to advertise for workers at a point towards the end

[johno]

How come its Abbotts fault that Ford vehicle sales for local built cars has dropped??? Propping up a landslide will only work for a while.

Sales of imported Fords has gone up, so that tells you what Joe public wants now. Not some oversized whale. Expensive Daewoo are no different

incase you thought I was a GM fan

[timetaker]

So the Falcon is an oversized whale?

[_Velocity_]

I'm with Johno. How is this Abbott's fault when Ford announced they'd shutdown local production in 2016 before Tony Abbott even became PM?

[ms700]

Because society demands a person to point the finger at for every issue or problem.

Even when there is a WHS incident, somebody must bear the brunt, or be at fault.

[turbotrana]

It's everyones fault. Ford for not running the company properly to the pollies not being proactive to the Aussie public not supporting the product. I don't care how supported the car industry is cause I know once its gone, its gone forever and its a very important sector in any economy.

It really saddens me that the Govt is going to shut it down when I know it could have been revived. For starters I would have made sure every gov't vehicle was an Aussie made vehicle.

[Rab]

Started years ago.

Aussie cars were crap and cheap (not really crap, but not world standard)

Foreign cars were expensive (overly so due to tarrifs etc)

Public demanded (and got) a more equal footing on vehicle pricing with tariffs/restrictions getting removed.

We then got crap foreign cars that were cheap.

The foreign cars got better (and cheaper) - locally made cars didn't do much of either.

We rested on out laurels - had a stage of huge wage rises (yay for us - nothing wrong with that) without a similar rise in productivity (boo - that's not good)

Foreign manufacturing had the opposite - cars were cheaper to make and productivity went through the roof.

Power/weight restrictions for P-platers meant the big V8 was something they no longer grew up dreaming of for their first car, so the Jap 4 cylinders became a thing they went after. A lot of the initial brand loyalty was lost right there. Didn't make much difference at the start, a whole generation is now starting to buy cars that don't have a dad who used to drive a HQ 308, a GT 351 or even a 5.0 VN Commadore or Falcon they were proud of.

These kids haven't got the almost "footy team supporter" attitude to our local heroes - would be more likely to scoff and prefer a cheap civic or festiva.

These are the ones that are now buying vehicles - Ford and Expensive Daewoo never started accounting for them.

Hell - they didn't even account for me. I had absolutely no idea what the turbo 6 was capable of until I found an awesome dealer discount and looked further.

So much political correctness these days means they can't highlight the strong points. They can't say "Hey - this car pushes 300hp out the rear wheels and can do the 1/4 in under 14 seconds"

Instead they have to advertise safety features, towing capacity and economy.

Yeah - a Toyota Camry has all those - great way to differentiate yourself dickheads.

Add to that our stupid design rules. Why the hell our country (with a population of 23? million) can't get on board with acceptable standards from around the world is beyond me. Get in line and we could export products without having to do a total re-tool or spend squillions designing a product and production line that complies with both theirs as well as ours.

Sure - everything needs to get globalised now, but if things were different and the companies and government lead instead of followed then we could have had a thriving car industry that had it's own, respected place on the world market. Instead we just dawdle along as we always have until the flame gets blown out.

[johno]

All the government money in Australia wouldnt have saved it. That decision was made by Ford/GM in the US. Poring money into it would have been a huge waste of yours and mine, as well as every tax payer in this country.

Some of the blame has to be taken by greedy workers, and union officials continually wanting more wages. It has to stop somewhere.