BY SUSAN ERLER. Times of Northwest Indiana
serler@nwitimes.com
Workers at the Ford Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights took the news in stride Friday of Ford Motor Co.'s plan to accelerate job cuts and plant closings.
"We saw this coming," said Don Deel Jr., chairman of UAW Local 588 at the plant.
Union members protected themselves by negotiating a competitive operating agreement ratified by 91 percent of the membership in late June, Deel said.
"What we did is change our work practices and guaranteed future work," Deel said. "We took actions to make sure we weren't one of those plants that they're naming."
The automaker Friday identified two additional plants to be closed: a metal stamping plant in Maumee, Ohio, and an engine plant in Essex, Ontario, bringing the total number of plants identified to nine.
The Friday announcement included plans to cut Ford's North American salaried work force by about one third, a total of about 14,000 jobs, and to offer buyout packages to all U.S. hourly employees.
An estimated 400 to 500 Chicago Heights Stamping Plant hourly workers, out of a total 1,388, could take the buyout offers, Deel said.
It was not known on Friday how many of the Chicago Assembly Plant's roughly 2,400 hourly workers would take buyouts.
One of the new buyout offers made Friday is for as much as $140,000 for employees age 55 and over, with at least 10 years of experience, who agree to forego health-care benefits, according to the United Auto Workers union. Another of the eight options is a $35,000 payout to leave the company and maintain health benefits.
The latest cuts speed up steps announced earlier, and bring to 30,000 the number of North American factory jobs to be cut by 2008, four years sooner than planned.
The automaker projected its North American auto business would remain unprofitable until at least 2009, and it suspended the quarterly dividend for the first time since 1982. Shares plunged by 12 percent.
The moves announced Friday are meant to trim operating costs by $5 billion.
Union workers at the Chicago Heights Stamping Plant helped secure their future by insourcing work previously done at the Ogihara and Budd stamping plants, Deel said.
"We gave the company flexibility and, in exchange, we took the work from Ogihara and Budd," Deel said. "We did what we had to do."
"Even though we've gone through a little bit of a tough period, our future looks very bright," Deel sad. "The UAW is committed to helping company survive. We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."
The Times' wire services contributed to this story.