Ford announces 12,000 layoffs, five plant closures across Europe

In a statement and conference call with investors yesterday, Ford Motor Company announced that it will lay off 12,000 workers and shutter five plants across Europe by 2020, a 20 percent reduction in its workforce on the continent.

The announcement is part of a global restructuring that the company announced last October. In January, it reported that it would slash a “significant number” of its European workforce of 51,000. In the ensuing months, it has worked with what it calls its “trade union partners” and governments across Europe to suppress the growing anger and resistance of workers.

The company’s statement yesterday confirmed that it will close its plant in Blanquefort, France, near Bordeaux, destroying approximately 800 jobs and ending its production in the country, the Bridgend Assembly plant in Wales, with 1,700 jobs, and three plants located in Russia: the Naberezhnye Chelny Assembly, St. Petersburg Assembly (which closed June 20) and Elabuga Engine Plant, destroying 2,000 jobs together.

It is also ending production of its C-Max passenger vehicles at its Saarlouis assembly plant in Germany, laying off more than 5,000 workers combined at Saarlouis and Cologne. The statement referred to an unknown number of layoffs at its plant in Valencia, Spain. In addition, it is selling the Kechnec Transmission Plant in Slovakia.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/28/ford-j28.html