BUSINESS NEWS
Ford SA cuts jobs, production
Posted Wed, 25 Jan 2006
Ford Motor Company in South Africa has announced "further
massive retrenchments plans of hundreds of workers," the National
Union of Metalworkers of South Africa said on Tuesday.
This follows the relocation of Volvo and Land Rover production
operations in Pretoria's Ford assembly plant to Europe, the union
said.
The union said it was deeply concerned about massive layoffs but
not shocked.
"We were forewarned when Volvo Corporation in Sweden decided to
recall Volvo production operations back to Sweden because its
employees were redundant as the plant was burdened by excess
labour," Tshwane local Numsa chairperson Alex Mashilo said.
Discontinued production of the most popular Ford Ikon late last
year, also put the union on alert of more difficulties to come.
And, the company's local unit posted major losses when the
production of Ford Focus in Pretoria for the Australian and New
Zealand market was suddenly stopped up due to the free
trade
agreement between Australia and Thailand, Numsa said.
The company also went through severe depression after losing the
lucrative contract for its Port Elizabeth's Struandale plant to
produce engines for the European market.
"Ford's afflictions looked set to increase after management
forecasted a rise in vehicle unit's global losses to R2.9-billion.
And this, subsequently, led to anticipated 30 000 job cuts and
threats to shut down several plants in Latin America."
Sapa
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