Employees tell newspaper that morale at troubled No. 2 automaker is dismal; white-collar workers said to be particularly worried.
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August , 2006
NEW YORK -- Workers at Ford Motor Co. are bracing for a new round of layoffs, benefits cuts and factory closures, with white-collar workers particularly nervous, according to a published report.
The Detroit News reports that workers have been attending presentations by outside analysts at the company headquarters in which they've heard more about mounting challenges facing the nation's No. 2 automaker.
Ford workers, particularly white-collar employees without union protection, are worried as they await word on deeper cuts in jobs and benefits, according to a published report.
The report said some have heard the suggestion that the Ford family eventually may have to give up some control to save the company.
Executives at Ford (Charts) now say the company's so-called "way forward" plan announced in January - a plan that included eliminating 4,000 salaried jobs, as many as 30,000 hourly positions and closing more than a dozen plants - didn't go far enough fast enough, the newspaper said.
Rumors about the timing and severity of the cutbacks are rampant and distracting, according to the report.
"There is a general sense of fear," a Ford manager told the newspaper Monday. He asked that his name not be used for fear of losing his job.
"It's almost as if people are saying, 'I'm not going to kill myself anymore for this company,' " the manager added. "They have been worn down by the constant drumbeat of bad news, the constant threat of job cuts. It's tough - and I am sure Mark Fields knows it."
Fields, president of Ford's Americas group and the one leading the company's restructuring effort, told reporters last week that he knows morale at the company is a problem due to the current worries and problems.
"Is it a little tense now? Sure," he told reporters last week, the paper reported. "We're working to communicate with our employees. I don't think people are in the dark."
Another white-collar Ford worker in the company's accounting department said workers, particularly those without union protections, do not like having to wait for the next shoe to drop. The company is supposed to update its restructuring plan next month.
"It just makes everyone think that Ford management has no plan," the accounting employee told the newspaper. "They are just winging it as each crisis hits. It's a never-ending discussion of what can go wrong next, usually followed by a discussion of how close people are to retiring."
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