Ford factory milestone (From Daily Echo)

A year after halving Southampton workforce, Transit maker celebrates six million sales

9:11am Saturday 1st May 2010 in Future of Ford By Simon Carr, Eastleigh Chief Reporter

A LANDMARK six-million sales and a milestone birthday.

Ford bosses at the giant Southampton plant celebrated these achievements by producing a special edition Ford Sapphire and buying all the staff an ice cream.

The firm’s European manufacturing vice president, Ken Macfarlane, said: “It’s great to be here in Southampton as Transit reaches another significant milestone.

“In its lifetime this plant has addressed many challenges and yet maintained the high quality of its product. This is made possible by a dedicated workforce and I thank them for that.”

The party, to celebrate the global sales and the 45th anniversary of the vans, comes almost a year after the motor giant cut production and slashed the workforce at its Swaythling operation by half.

The outgoing staff took with them 14,000 years’ experience.

One of the workers to take voluntary redundancy, Steve Slominski, 53, said: “I am glad the factory is still there because I wasn’t sure it would be.

“I am pleased for the guys there and I would be celebrating but I think lots of them know the score and wonder realistically how many more anniversaries they are going to see out there.

“For some people, leaving has been a good thing but a lot of people I know are now not working, doing low-paid menial job or doing part-time cash-in-hand work to make ends meet.”

A worker still on the shop floor, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “To be honest I thought the whole place would have been shut down six months ago so it is a day worth celebrating.

“Hopefully things are turning around for workers here, although it is going to take a long time before anyone feels safe in their job again.”

The first signs of question marks over the Southampton plant came to light two years ago when the Daily Echo exclusively published a leaked memo revealing the future of the plant was under review.

A string of exclusives also told how bosses planned to cut jobs, slash output and export production of the iconic van to Turkey.

Months later the motor giant confirmed these details but pushed the plan back to 2012 due to the recession.

Ford claims the Southampton factory will keep producing the current model Transit but switch to the chassis cab when the new generation of vehicle is introduced.

It said it was making a multi-million pounds investment in the facility and was committed to its future.

More than 500 workers walked out of the gate for the last time on May 5.