- Ford ha annunciato il taglio di 34 mila dipendenti = 28%,
e la chiusura di 14 stabilimenti in Nordamerica, di cui 4 entro l’anno, più
la chiusura di un turno in stabilimento canadese. - In aggiunta ai 30 mila tagli annunciati da GM siamo a
oltre 60 mila. - [Contemporaneamente Daimler Chrysler ha annunciato il taglio
di 6 mila posti]. - Attività USA nel 2005 hanno perso 1,55 MD$, tutto il gruppo
ha realizzato utili di 2MD$, in calo sui 3,5MD$ del 2004. Nel 2006 perdite USA
supereranno profitti EU e Asia. - Ford annuncia una svolta nei metodi di gestione, ponendo
fine alle produzioni in perdita, e tagliando la capacità produttiva in eccesso,
da 4,55 a 3,35 milioni entro il 2008, adeguandola alle vendite attuali (3,3 m). - Intende anche arrivare a piattaforme più globali, e ad
acuisti più globali dei componenti, con risparmio di 6MD$ in 4 anni. - Negli ultimi anni sia Ford che GM traevano da pick-up e
veicoli sport-utility i profitti con cui coprire le perdite delle auto di
minore cilindrata, cercando di tenere la produzione vicino alla capacità
produttiva, anche perché i contratti sindacali impongono loro di pagare la
manodopera anche se non utilizzata. - La ristrutturazione evidenzia uno spartiacque tra produttori
europei e asiatici, che realizzano utili e aumentano l’occupazione negli USA
(sono ora a un quarto degli occupati), e GM e Ford che subiscono il peso di
costi accumulati in decenni di scarsa concorrenza. - Ford spenderà 470m$ nel 2005 per le chiusure e i
licenziamenti (prepensionamenti); + altri 500 m$ per altri licenziamenti,
inclusi quelli di Visteon, il gruppo componentistico scorporato. Ford metterà
molti lavoratori nella JOB BANK, banca dei posti (specie di CIG pagata
dall’azienda). Ora ce ne sono 1.100, e il costo di un lavoro sindacalizzato
nella Job Bank è di circa $130.000. - Ford taglierà subito il 10% degli impiegati con
prepensionamenti, licenziamenti, mancato reintegro lavoratori a termine e
interinali. - Nel primo trimestre ci sarà un taglio del 12% dei dirigenti.
L’azienda si è irrigidita, burocratizzata. - Ford cede anche attività non auto come Hertz (noleggio auto)
e prevede che le attività Nordamericane torneranno in utile non dopo il 2008. - Ford intende smantellare una serie di clausole del
vigente contratto con UAW, che scade nel 2007. UAW ha fatto delle concessioni
in campo assistenza sanitaria.
Car Maker to Close 14 Plants
As It Joins GM in Overhaul
Of Detroit’s Business Model
By JEFFREY MCCRACKEN and JOSEPH B. WHITE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 24, 2006; Page A1
DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. has made it
official: Detroit is ditching its business model of the 1990s, and the cost
now totals more than 60,000 jobs at Ford and rival General Motors Corp.
Ford yesterday
announced plans to close 14 North American factories, including seven
assembly plants, and slash up to 34,000 North American jobs over the next six
years. About a month ago, GM rolled out plans to cut almost as many jobs by
2010. Both companies will emerge from these retrenchments smaller, slugging it
out in a crowded U.S. auto market. Underscoring the gravity of the situation, Ford
yesterday also announced a $1.55 billion loss at its North American operations
for 2005.
The question now is whether the cuts at
Detroit’s giants are the beginning of a new, more competitive era, or just
the beginning of the end. "We cannot play the game the old way,"
Ford Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. said in an interview.
For years, Ford and GM relied on making a
lot of money on a few products — mainly large pickup trucks and sport-utility
vehicles — to cover losses or bolster slim profits on small and midsize cars. The old way, as Mr. Ford said, took the approach that "if you
build it, they will buy it." That meant building vehicles even when
sales were slow simply to keep factories running and avoid paying wages to
idled workers, as required by union contracts.
"Our product plans for too long were
defined by our capacity," Mr. Ford said in a speech to investors,
reporters and Ford employees gathered in a Ford design studio yesterday.
"From now on, our vehicles will be designed to satisfy the customer, not
just fill a factory."
For both companies, the transition will be
painful and expensive — but essential. The overall U.S. auto industry
remains relatively robust, with sales close to record levels and employment at
about one million people, roughly the same as in 1990, according to a
recent Congressional Research Service report. The difference between then and
now: About a fourth of all U.S. auto jobs are now with foreign-owned
manufacturers, the report found.
Indeed, the restructurings highlight the divide
between Asian and European manufacturers, which are profitable and adding jobs
in the U.S., and GM and Ford, which are struggling with the cost burdens
piled on over decades during which they had little real competition. Now,
as GM and Ford resize for profitability, Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. stands
ready to push past GM to become the world’s No. 1 auto maker in terms of
world-wide vehicle sales, perhaps as soon as this year.
Ford estimates that the "Way
Forward," as its restructuring is dubbed, will cost $470 million this
year as it buys out worker contracts and writes off closed plants. Ford
Chief Financial Officer Don LeClair said the company could incur $500
million in additional costs this year for other buyouts, including workers at
auto-parts plants that were part of Ford’s former Visteon Corp. unit.
Costs will also rise as Ford adds more
workers to the JOBS Bank — a program negotiated with the United Auto
Workers union under which workers receive full pay and benefits if their jobs
are eliminated. Ford has about 1,100 workers in its JOBS Bank already, and the
company estimates that each UAW member in the JOBS Bank costs it about
$130,000.
Of the 14 plants that Ford said it will close
by 2012, five were named and slated to be closed soon: vehicle-assembly
plants in St. Louis, Atlanta, and Wixom, Mich.; an engine-parts plant in
Windsor, Ontario; and a transmission plant in Batavia, Ohio. In
addition, a Ford assembly plant in St. Thomas, Ontario, will lose one shift.
Ford plans to close two more assembly plants by the end of the year, but will
build one "new, low-cost" manufacturing site in North America. It
didn’t say where or when.
Ford said it also will immediately begin
cutting 10% of its white-collar work force in North America, or about 4,000
salaried positions, through buyouts, attrition, layoffs and reductions of
contract or agency workers. Ford said it will trim its executive ranks by
12% in the first quarter. It will announce specific executive departures
Tuesday, including that of Ford sales chief Steve Lyons, according to people
close to the company. All told, Ford will reduce its North American work
force by nearly 28%.
Announcing its latest financial results
yesterday, Ford said the $1.55 billion loss at North American operations
last year will widen so much this year that it will overtake the automotive
profits Ford expects to earn in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. Overall, net income
last year dropped 42% to $2 billion, or $1.04 a share, from $3.5 billion,
or $1.73 a share, a year earlier. Ford said fourth-quarter net income rose 19%
to $124 million, or eight cents a share, from $104 million, or six cents a
share, a year earlier. But in its North American operations, Ford posted a
pretax loss of $143 million for the quarter.
Ford, like GM, is selling some
nonautomotive assets — like its Hertz car-rental business — with the
proceeds going in part to fund restructuring. Still, Ford said gross cash on
hand, at $25.1 billion at the end of 2005, could fall closer to $20 billion by
the end of this year. The auto maker said the restructuring will return its
North American automotive operations to profitability "no later than
2008."
Ford’s efforts to shrink and regain
profitability in North America mirror those of crosstown rival GM, which is
expected to report a huge loss when it announces fourth-quarter results later
this week. Late last year, GM announced plans to eliminate about 30,000 jobs
and close nine plants.
If Ford and GM can cut capacity to match
demand, while also making their factories and their labor contracts more
flexible to meet changing consumer tastes, they could ultimately be able to
charge more for their vehicles. Both auto makers have been hurt in recent years
by their reliance on profit-eating consumer incentives such as no-interest
financing. Ford’s restructuring will reduce its current vehicle-making
capacity of 4.55 million units in North America to about 3.35 million by 2008,
or nearly in line with the 3.3 million vehicles it sold in the U.S. and Canada
in 2005.
Wall Street remains skeptical that the two auto makers can pull it off. Ford’s credit ratings
sank deeper into junk-bond territory earlier this month, even after Standard
& Poor’s Corp. and other rating agencies got early glimpses of the
restructuring plan. Their shares have also continued to trade lower. In 4 p.m.
composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Ford shares were at
$8.32, up 42 cents on the day, but down from $13.46 a year ago.
A major challenge for both will be restructuring
their relationships with the UAW, specifically the JOBS Bank program, which
many industry watchers think the auto makers will try to eliminate when the
current four-year UAW national agreement expires in September 2007.
Mr. Ford declined to discuss specific issues
related to the UAW. But he noted that Ford did win UAW approval, albeit
narrowly, for a package of concessions on health-care costs. "The
rules of the game have changed for them and for us," Mr. Ford said.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who
has been working closely with GM and Ford to renegotiate the UAW’s labor pacts
to lower health-care costs, said in a statement that Ford’s announcement
yesterday is "devastating news for the many thousands of
hard-working men and women who have devoted their working lives to Ford.
Certainly, today’s announcement will only make the 2007 negotiations all the
more difficult and all the more important."
Mark Fields,
head of Ford’s North American operations, has led turnarounds for Ford at Mazda
Corp. and at Ford of Europe. His latest campaign, he says, is as much about changing
a conservative, top-down management culture as it is about cutting Ford’s
excessive capacity. "We’ve grown too conservative, too hierarchical,
too resistant to change and new ideas," he says. "Frankly, true
accountability has not been our strong suit. Acting like a smaller company can
change this."
To do this, Ford will pursue a strategy of more
global vehicle platforms, as well as more global purchasing, so that one
part or commodity is the same across all vehicle lines in any country. Ford is
counting on this purchasing plan, launched late last year, to save $6
billion over the next four years.
Mr. Ford said Ford has the building blocks to
develop more competitive small vehicles. "It won’t take as long as you
think," he said.