Ford says 38,000 accepted buyout offers
(AP)Updated: 2006-11-30 08:50
Ford is also offering packages to 10,000 white-collar workers, with further unspecified reductions in 2009. The company said the reductions will bring manufacturing capacity more in line with lower demand and allow the company to become more competitive.
The figures released Wednesday include approximately 30,000 employees who took buyouts during the open signup period that concluded late Monday, plus about 8,000 who took deals offered at limited plants earlier this year. Of the 38,000, about 6,000 are hourly employees at former Visteon Corp. plants that Ford took back from the auto parts supplier earlier this year.
Joe Laymon, Ford group vice president for human resources and labor affairs, said the company's new leadership understands winning concessions from unions isn't enough. Ford will renegotiate contracts with the United Auto Workers next fall.
"We have to also pick up our game," Laymon said in a conference call with reporters. "This is not just only a company-union deal here in terms of the UAW giving things to us to make sure we are a viable company." He added that one of Chief Executive Alan Mulally's priorities is to make sure that "we accelerate the development of what our customers want."
The eight packages offered to hourly employees range from $35,000 to $140,000. Marty Mulloy, Ford's vice president of labor affairs, said 53 per cent of the workers selected nontraditional packages, with the majority taking either lump sum payments or one of two education plans. One four-year package offers up to $15,000 per year for college tuition, plus half of the worker's salary and health benefits, while another offers to pay 70 per cent of pay and tuition for two years.
Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said the company is offering three programs to salaried workers - two early retirement packages and a buyout program. If the salaried workers are offered one of the packages, they are not able to select another, although all of the programs at this point are voluntary, she said.
Offers for two of the programs already have been made, while a third will go out in mid-December, she said.
"We think that the majority of the people who take the voluntary separation packages will do so by the end of the first quarter," Evans said.
Ford shares rose 2 cents to close at $8.17 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
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