BY ANDREA HOLECEK, Times of Northwest Indiana
holecek@nwitimes.com
The presidents and chairmen of area UAW locals will join their counterparts meeting in Detroit today to discuss how it would respond if Ford offers wholesale buyouts to its workers.
"It's for discussion and strategy," said Bill Jackson, president of Local 588 at the Ford Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights. Local 588 Chairman Don Deel also will be in attendance today, as will be the president and chairman of Local 551 at the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant.
Jackson, of Dyer, couldn't provide any information on what the company may offer or what the union's reaction would be buyouts were offered.
"We're on frontier," he said. "This kind of challenge has never happened before."
In Ford's Way Forward plan announced in January, the company said it planned to close 14 plants and cut between 22,000 and 24,000 hourly jobs by the end of 2008, and a total of 30,000 employees by 2012, through early retirement or buyouts. As of Aug. 1, 1,300 union workers had accepted the offer.
However, a recent report by Bloomberg News -- quoting unidentified company sources -- said Ford wants to cut more workers and would offer a buyout program similar to General Motors, which allows all eligible workers to take a buyout.
Ford didn't deny or confirm the reports Monday.
"As we have said, when we have something to announce, we'll announce it and we'll tell our employees first," Ford spokeswoman Ann Marie Gattari said.
Currently, Ford offers six different retirement packages to its hourly workers, Jackson said. If Ford does offer a buyout program, it could include any combination of those plans or be completely different, he said. Currently, the company offers early retirement to anyone with 30 years of service.
A "substantial" number of the Stamping Plant workers currently are eligible for retirement, said Jackson, who didn't know the exact percentage.
Members of Local 588 at the Stamping Plant accepted company-requested changes in working practices in July to make the plant more competitive through cost savings. Ford Assembly Plant hourly workers, however, have not accepted changes asked of them, and area Ford workers are concerned the company might close the Assembly Plant if its local doesn't comply with the company's proposals.
The Assembly Plant was shuttered for six weeks beginning in early July. Workers returned Aug. 14, but they began another one-week shut down Monday. The plant also is scheduled to be shuttered for three weeks starting Oct. 16.
Jackson said the "change-working-conditions-or-close" rumor -- though not substantiated -- is widespread, at least at his facility.
"The sentiment is there," said Jackson, whose facility depends on the Chicago Assembly Plant for 50 percent of its production. "But I don't know that it would be fatal. We want them to be competitive and flourish."
No one from Local 551 could be reached for comment.