Ford tells UAW it wants to shed 4,200 more workers

About 4,200 autoworkers still must go at Ford Motor Co.

That’s the number of excess hourly workers that the Dearborn-based automaker still has in North America, the company told union officials during private Ford-UAW meetings on Tuesday and today.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally and other top Ford executives, such as Joe Hinrichs, group vice president for global manufacturing and labor affairs, and Jim Farley, group vice president of marketing and communications, addressed hundreds of union workers during the sessions.

While Ford officials came short of calling the 4,200 number a job-reduction target, but several people who attended the meeting, and did not want to be identified, said the company made it clear that it would like to reduce that many workers or more under its latest round of buyouts.

Ford has already reduced its hourly workforce by nearly 40% since 2005. That left Ford with about 61,000 hourly workers in the United States, Canada and Mexico at the end of June.

The Dearborn automaker currently is offering 10 buyout packages to workers at select factories in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, but has not divulged publicly how many hourly workers it aims to shed.

Ford officials had no comment on the figure provided to the union.

It is unclear whether Ford, which has lost $8.6 billion through the first half of the year, will begin the process of permanently laying off unneeded workers under the terms of its labor contract, if it does not meet its target.

But with its U.S. sales down 15.6% and economic malaise spreading from this country to foreign markets, Ford is ramping up its efforts to slim down its workforce.

The automaker laid off an unknown number of salaried workers in July and August after an effort to get workers to voluntarily leave with a buyout came up short. Ford refused to say how many workers have left so far, but the automaker is expected to formally divulge the number when it reports its third-quarter financial results in October.

Ford had attempted to shed 8,000 hourly jobs through voluntary buyouts earlier this year, too. However, just 3,700 workers voluntarily left the company during the first half of the year, leaving Ford about 4,300 workers short of its hourly reduction objective.

Last week, the automaker launched a Web site, www.yourjobconnection.org, in an effort to get workers to consider taking one of the buyout packages.

Ford has “more people than jobs,” exec Hinrichs says in a video on the new job site. “We’re expecting things to stay difficult for the next few years,” he says.

Bob King, UAW vice president and director of the union’s Ford department, who joined Hinrichs in the video, adds: “I urge you to carefully consider these programs.”

Today, Ford told its workers in Canada that it intends to cut 500 jobs at its Oakville, Ontario, factory, where it is encouraging eligible workers to take early retirement offers.

If Ford does not meet its job reduction objectives under buyout programs, it is unclear whether Ford will begin an effort to lay off workers involuntarily, under the terms of the company’s labor contract with the union. It also remains unclear whether Ford is finished slimming its salaried workforce in this tough economic climate.

When the Free Press on Monday asked Ford CEO Mulally if the company was finished with involuntary layoffs, he said the automaker would continue to match its costs to market demands.

“We’re going to keep looking at everything,” Ford spokeswoman Karen Hampton later said. She added that “there is not a current plan” to further reduce the number of salaried workers.

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