Hopes up at Ford for ‘reduced cuts’

By Noel Murphy
FORD workers are set to receive formal redundancy offers in the next fortnight as the car-maker moves to cut up to 220 jobs from the North Geelong plant.
But hopes are high the final number of lost jobs might be lower as Ford looks to redeploy workers where it can and weighs the possibilities of an all-new vehicle post-2016.
Under a new enterprise bargaining agreement, Ford workers will receive a nine per cent pay rise over the next three years.
Redundancy packages remain unchanged at 3.1 weeks pay per year of service, although the company is set to offer 4.1 for voluntary redundancies.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vehicle division spokesman David Smith said the formal redundancy offers would be tabled within two weeks.
“They’ll determine how many volunteers they have then they’ll be able to work out whether there are opportunities to redeploy people to areas not affected by the redundancies,’’ he said.
“This would lessen the need for compulsory packages.’’
Anxiety still permeated the shop floor at Ford, Mr Smith said.
“This is a redundancy no-one wants but discussions with the company are pretty good. They’re trying to work through this with the unions and minimise as much as possible the impact on workers.’’
Meanwhile, as Ford ramps up a design and engineering centre at Campbellfield, Australia’s role in the car-maker’s global development operations appears more-assured, especially as it’s already designing cars for South-East Asia, China and India.
But while manufacturing proper remains unclear, apart from an update of the Falcon sedan and ute and Territory SUV, industry observers are increasingly talkative about the viability of Melbourne hosting a small-scale operation producing a medium-sized car, probably an SUV.
noel.murphy@geelongindependent.com.au