WOODHAVEN, Mich. — The Ford Motor Company is applying the hard sell these days — piling on incentives, doling out marketing DVDs and brochures, and making offers it hopes are too good to pass up.þþBut Ford’s big new push is not to sell cars. Instead, it is trying to sign up thousands of workers to take buyouts, partly by convincing them that their brightest future lies outside the company that long offered middle-class wages for blue-collar jobs.þþSo, Ford is pitching a buffet of buyout packages that are easily among the richest ever offered to factory workers, including one-time cash payments of $140,000 or college tuition plans for an entire family.þþThe automaker is also putting on job fairs in its plants and mailing each of its 54,000 hourly workers a feature-length DVD, titled “Connecting With Your Future,” that extols the promise of new careers beyond the assembly line.þþLast Friday, inside a huge sheet-metal stamping plant in this industrial center south of Detroit, Ford workers spent their lunch hour perusing opportunities to go back to school, hire on at growing companies and open fast-food franchises.þþ“I am taking it seriously, but it’s really hard to think about leaving,” said Jerry Thomas, a 37-year-old millwright with 12 years at Ford. “The only thing that would make me do it is the uncertainty. We just don’t know what’s going to happen with Ford.”þþThe push to move workers out reflects the tough times in Detroit. Ford has lost $15 billion in the last two years, and General Motors and Chrysler are also revamping after heavy losses.þþWhile Detroit’s Big Three have already cut about 80,000 jobs through buyouts and early retirements since 2006, a new blitz is under way to shrink employment even further to make way for lower-paid workers in the future.þþThe aggressive approach to buyouts is particularly striking at Ford.þþIn the early 1900s, the company founder, Henry Ford, transformed the American workplace by pioneering $5-a-day wages on the assembly line. And the company’s paternalistic culture still lingers in the way workers often refer to the company as “Ford’s,” in reference to the family that provided them a comfortable income.þþFord executives say the buyout packages, which are the most lucrative and diverse ever offered in the industry, reflect a belief that Ford should look after its workers and ease their transition into different careers.þþ“We need to restructure, and it’s important to our business to do so,” said Joseph R. Hinrichs, Ford’s head of global manufacturing. “But we want to do it in the best way for our employees.”þþBut there is no mistaking Ford’s message that this is the last companywide offer, and there could be layoffs if further downsizing becomes necessary.þþFord is not saying how many workers it expects to take the buyouts by a March 18 deadline. But Wall Street analysts say the company has set a goal to get 8,000 employees to sign up.þþGeneral Motors is also extending buyout offers to all of its 74,000 hourly employees, while Chrysler is offering buyouts to workers on a regional and individual plant basis.þþThe belt-tightening comes after years of declining market share and increased competition from foreign automakers, led by Toyota.þþ“These companies are trying to do in the last 24 months what they should have done over the last 24 years,” said John A. Casesa of the automotive consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group. “That’s why it’s such a shock to the system.”þþFord has eliminated more than 32,000 jobs over the last two years through buyouts and early retirements. But it needs to cut more to improve productivity, make room for transfers from its former Visteon parts plants, and pave the way for new hires at wages of $14 an hour — roughly half of current pay scales.þþ“We always prefer for people to voluntarily leave and that’s why we put the energy and effort into this package of buyouts,” said Martin J. Mulloy, Ford’s vice president for labor affairs.þþThe buyout deals were developed with the United Automobile Workers union. In fact, one senior union official endorsed the downsizing effort in a cover article titled “Fresh Opportunities” in the company’s internal Ford World magazine.þþ“Because of the loss of market share and because the economy is so bad, there aren’t enough jobs for everybody,” said the official, Bob King, the U.A.W.’s Ford division vice president.þþ
Source: NY Times
