Ford workers return after factory’s third shutdown (From Daily Echo)
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Ford workers return after factory’s third shutdown
9:34am Monday 2nd November 2009 in
WORKERS at the giant Southampton Ford plant are returning today after their third shutdown in a year.
News the motor giant planned to slash 550 jobs, cut output and export production of the iconic Transit van was revealed last year when the Daily Echo exclusively published a leaked company memo.
Months later the firm admitted huge cutbacks were on the cards and earlier this year half the factory took voluntary redundancy and walked out the gates for the last time.
Top-level Detroit bosses gave the green light to the plan to downsize Southampton and cut production to just 30,000 chassis cabs.
Due to the recession the move was pushed back a year but jobs were still cut.
Ford bosses insist there are no plans for further job cuts and claim the factory will now be operating at maximum efficiency.
They refused to say when production of its most famous model would be moved from the city to an operation in Turkey.
In addition to extended periods of downtime workers had a month shutdown at Christmas, another during the summer in addition to the two weeks just gone.
Comments(13)
Andy Locks Heath
says...
11:05am Mon 2 Nov 09
goard wrote:Perhaps the Post Office worker should concentrate on posting letters and stopped pretending they know how to run a large company. This notion that face workers somehow know the complexities of running large organisations is a myth that only exists in the heads of inexperienced idiots like Southy and those who support him.
Detroit bosses may have to downsize but they won't forget the strikes and will put their boot in in ways the general public will not notice. It's not fun being an employee - look at the Post Office staff.
goard
espanuel
says...
1:23pm Mon 2 Nov 09
espanuel
says...
1:23pm Mon 2 Nov 09
southy
says...
2:01pm Mon 2 Nov 09
Miles Way
says...
2:46pm Mon 2 Nov 09
southy wrote:Absolutely spot on Southy, the posties could easily run the R/Mail but the bosses aren't capable of putting a letter through the correct postbox, that must be why the posties are paid so much more than the management.
andy many of those workers, mainly the long time served ones could run the PO much better than the current new bosses. the ground force do all the work day in and day out. the bosses dont get to see how things really work, they are not the ones behind a say like the guys who check the post code, or making sure the letters end up in the right bags, ect ect, and that go's for most companysits the ground work force that do's the majority of the work.its the ground work force that makes the company money. any many off those guys could do the bosses jobs easy, but its not so easy the other way round.
I can't believe Andy, L/Heath, could get it so wrong..
southy
says...
3:18pm Mon 2 Nov 09
Woolston Saint
says...
3:34pm Mon 2 Nov 09
southy wrote:Southy,you are exactly right i work for royal mail amd every time a new manager is brought in its down to us humble posties to tell him how to run the section
miles the best run companys, bring on there own work force, and bring them up though the ladder, this myth of if you want the best people to run a company then you must bring some one in and pay them over the top money, to do the job is a very big mistake, those people dont know the first thing about the company they are failing to run.
Miles Way
says...
4:26pm Mon 2 Nov 09
southy wrote:I don't disagree with you there, promoting from within a workforce is a good thing, however, that doesn't mean someone who starts as a postie would have the ability to run the company - become a manager perhaps but running the whole thing as you suggest?
miles the best run companys, bring on there own work force, and bring them up though the ladder, this myth of if you want the best people to run a company then you must bring some one in and pay them over the top money, to do the job is a very big mistake, those people dont know the first thing about the company they are failing to run.
And as for failing to run the business, is that more failure to run it as the workers would like it run? Surely Posties striking is failing the business too?
Andy Locks Heath
says...
4:27pm Mon 2 Nov 09
Woolston Saint wrote:You've just proved my point. Your entire experience and all your posts are based on operation, not strategy or structure, which you would never see or even be aware of. Regardless of what happens in operations where experience can be very useful the best organisations absolutely do NOT bring people vertically through the same hierarchy because it leads to entrenched ideas, lack of innovation, resistance to change, and structures that do not meet the changing workplace - all symptoms of what is going wrong at Royal Mail and why face workers who think they know how to run the organisation are actually killing it. A sorting office manager is not the level of management that counts in this regard. Southy has no concept of the difference between making an EBITDA operating surplus and actually being a viable long term business. None of the workers has even suggested yet how to make up the defecit in their own pension fund FFS - and yet they want more money from taxpayers to keep topping it up while sticking to the same old innefficient work practices that got them into this mess.
southy wrote:Southy,you are exactly right i work for royal mail amd every time a new manager is brought in its down to us humble posties to tell him how to run the section
miles the best run companys, bring on there own work force, and bring them up though the ladder, this myth of if you want the best people to run a company then you must bring some one in and pay them over the top money, to do the job is a very big mistake, those people dont know the first thing about the company they are failing to run.
And what do you do when you go back to work and the mailbags are half empty because the business has gone elsewhere - award yourselves a payrise?
Derek of Dibden Purlieu
says...
7:21pm Mon 2 Nov 09
southy
says...
12:37am Tue 3 Nov 09
when a service is running perfect you dont go changing it, that old additive if not broken you dont need to fix it, all the po needs is an overseer, its a big mistake to bring in people from the out side they dont have a clue how to run things.
and derek they all failed because an out sider was brought in to see it though privatizion. all for the sake of making a few people richer, england was producing the best steel in the world till it got privatize.
Iw61
says...
7:13am Tue 3 Nov 09
Dont want to go back in history (as you told me) but the PO management made the business decision to have these pensions for their work force. They went on pension holidays in the 90s when they should have been 'saving for the bad times'. And now when its too late they are making the future receivers of the pension pay for these mistakes.
Management often bleat that it couldnt be predicted that people would be getting older in the future yet some pension seller was telling the PO that these pension schemes would still be viable.
This in my view is where the problem lies. I cant see why time after time sh*tty business decisions in both the private and public sector are blamed on employees while the managers drawing the big salaries get away with it.
What this has to do with Transit Production at Ford is beyond me.
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- New face at Ford is silent about future
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Ford workers return after factory’s third shutdown
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goard says...
10:58am Mon 2 Nov 09
goard