Ford extends offer on worker buyouts
Written on May 24, 2009
Ford Motor Co. said Friday that it is giving its hourly workers five more weeks to decide whether they want to accept the company’s buyout and early retirement offers.
The original deadline was Friday, but Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said the company is extending the date to June 26. "We extended the deadline so that we could allow our employees a little more time to consider the buyout packages," she said.
Kozleski wouldn’t say how many of Ford’s 42,000 hourly workers have accepted the offers so far, but the extension could be an indication that the company hasn’t gotten as many takers as it would like.
The automaker’s latest round of buyout and early retirement offers aren’t as lucrative as those made in the past, but they’re better than those offered earlier this year by General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Retirement-eligible skilled trade workers can get up to $40,000 to leave, while retirement-eligible production workers would get $20,000. The company is offering $50,000 in buyouts for those not eligible to retire who have at least one year of seniority. Most would also get a $25,000 voucher to buy a car or a $20,000 cash payment.
There also is an option to leave the company and get benefits and payments for education cash advance loan.
Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford is the only major U.S. automaker that hasn’t accepted government loans, but it is undertaking efforts to cut costs and reduce its work force.
Ford’s buyout and early retirement offers are part of a series of contract concessions the United Auto Workers union agreed to in February. Other concessions included suspension of cost-of-living pay raises, lump-sum performance bonuses and end-of-the-year bonuses. The union also agreed to take as equity 50 percent of the payments Ford is required to make into a union-run trust fund that will take over retiree health care expenses next year.
The Ford deal served as a template for similar agreements at Chrysler last month and at GM, which reached a tentative deal with the UAW on Thursday.
Ford has said its new agreement reduces annual labor costs by more than $500 million, but it may call the UAW back to the bargaining table to get additional concessions contained in the Chrysler and GM deals.
Filed in: legal.