Posted on 08/15/2005 8:08:26 AM PDT by traumer
DETROIT - For the first time in generations, Ford Motor Co. has resorted to firing employees and immediately escorting them from corporate buildings - roiling the company and compelling Chief Executive Officer Bill Ford to send a message this week to employees.
Until now, Detroit automakers have cut thousands of white-collar jobs almost exclusively by getting employees to voluntarily quit through early retirement, buyouts or letting open positions go unfilled.
But not nearly enough people have come off Ford's payroll to meet its initial goal of cutting 2,750 of its 35,000 North American white-collar workers.
Even worse for workers, the company reported a $907 million loss in the April-June period this year for its North American division and says now that cuts may have to go even deeper than 2,750 positions.
That means Ford is getting tough about cutting people loose. The company wouldn't say Thursday how many people it has fired in recent weeks, but Bill Ford acknowledged the bold new measures in an e-mail to employees on Monday.
"Some have asked me why we have had to ask employees to depart immediately," he wrote. "Well, the management team has discussed this and concluded that it's kinder to make our separations in this fashion, rather than have the employee remain in a difficult situation. Frankly, there's no easy way to do this."
Ford drew up a policy for firing salaried workers in 2002 but didn't enact that plan until last month, said company spokesman Oscar Suris.
In the ever-cyclical business of the automotive industry, Ford traditionally would downsize during a recession but then rehire many of the workers once the economy recovered and profits grew.
Ford's firings reflect the cold reality facing today's employees, work force experts said.
"It used to be that if there was a downsizing, it would happen in a way that would show that you're taking care of us, that you're being a caring employer," Ellen Kossek, a professor of human resource management at Michigan State University, said Thursday. "Ford is not going out of its way to not be a nice employer. They are just making the difficult choices."
Here goes "the employee discount for everyone"....
I wonder how many on the "management team" are being let go for agreeing to the crazy and very costly union agreements..
At one time, these giant industrial bureaucracies could support themselves, given a domestic-only market environment. That has changed as we know -- like GM, Ford has learned it cannot support an "internal welfare state" which generates loads of unfunded debt..it is a world market now, with outside competitive standards and pressures.
Either trim down, or lose market share...in a big way.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! ...
Welcome to the club 'Ford Employees'. Ain't Corporate America Grand.
I guess the world has some new Honda and Toyota customers.
I was gonna spin it as: "At least they get to keep the employee discount." Like everybody else in America.
Ford made junk for years. They didn't care. They dismissed the thought of foreign competition. Deuce drove the Pinto around the race track once and gave the go-ahead, so the legend goes.
American car makers have not left the dream world of the 1950's. I used to wonder how they could give away so much money for wages and benefits. Now GM is known as a benefits company that also makes cars.
Why don't they find a way to turn 50% of their cars into hybrids while still keeping them looking like real cars.
Given todays' current oil market, I do believe they would sell.
Regards, Ivan
"It used to be that if there was a downsizing, it would happen in a way that would show that you're taking care of us, that you're being a caring employer..."
(14 year DEC employee who was thrown out the door one fine day during Bob Palmer's 'downsizing' so he could leave with a $52 million platinum parachute)
I guess they never thought of a catapult on the roof.
"American car makers have not left the dream world of the 1950's."
American Car manufacturers and unions have the same business model as they had in the 50s, I read recently where Ford feels the biggest challenge is securing a CBA with UAW.
Ford, GM and Chrysler are on their last legs unless they get bold visionaries in leadership and throw out this 1950's model and the unions that go with it.
You couldn't pay me enough to even test drive their junks, and I drove Fords for 30 years long ago.
I was thinking the same thing.
The "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot used to talk about is here. It is not just Mexico sucking away American jobs. It is China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, Thailand, Central and South America, and any other country with low wage workers. We are reaping the consequences of globalization.
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