By Luke Voogt
ABOUT 200 people are set to lose their jobs today (Friday) as Geelong’s Ford factory grinds to a close after 90 years in operation.
The history making plant designed the iconic ute following a letter from a farmer who wanted a vehicle “I can take my pigs to market in during the week and my wife to church on Sunday”.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Victorian Secretary Paul Difelice said the employees would need all the assistance they could get.
“It’s a very, very sad day that such an icon is going.”
“Ford is probably one of the very few companies that built from the ground up in Australia – all that technology and expertise is going to be lost.”
Mr Difelice said Ford had done its utmost to help workers transition to new jobs since announcing the closure in May 2013
He praised the previous Federal Government for establishing the $5.25 million Auto Skills Australia project. The current Federal Government has also allocated millions of dollars to Geelong in job creation programs.
Mr Difelice said AMWU had developed an outreach centre for former workers which will open next Monday.
Since Ford announced the Geelong and Broadmeadows closures it has or will re-employ 160 workers, a company spokesperson said.
Bell Park’s Brendan Sexton will continue working for the company at its Lara proving ground.
Mr Sexton joined Ford after it posted record sales in 1985.
“I was working at the Pancake Kitchen, I think,” he said.
“If someone had told me when I was 20 I’d be at Ford for 32 years, I’d have looked at them as if they were stupid.”
For Mr Sexton the highlights of working at the plant were meeting new mates and “learning something new every day”.
“I’m quite proud I’ve lasted 32 years,” he said.
While Ford has found work for some, others will struggle, he said.
“In some ways they’ve done a good job trying to accommodate everybody. (Ford employees) have a lot of knowledge and skills, but often they don’t have a bit of paper to reflect it.”
However Mr Difelice said Ford had striven in the plant’s final weeks to ensure workers received qualifications.
“There are a lot of incentives out there for companies to hire Ford workers and a lot of them have been snapped up,” he said.
Ford began manufacturing in Geelong when its first Australian-built car rolled off a makeshift, 12-metre assembly line on 1 July 1925.
A small group of Ford executives and locals gathered at the Dalgety and Co wool store and clapped as the Model T roared to life.
In 1926, Ford finished construction on its now iconic Geelong plant.
The company went on to make history in 1934 when it produced the world’s first ute.
The plant built tens of thousands of different models and was pivotal in supplying Australia’s armed services during World War II.
The company has sponsored the Geelong Cats for 91 years and will continue to do so until at least 2020.
