Ford Auto Workers Await Word of Potential Job Cuts as Automaker...

ed velez wrote:

BRING BACK THE FORD RANCHEROS CAR PICKUP WITH BIG V-8 WIDE TIRES USE THE LIGHTING SEATS GIVE IT A SIX SPEED TRANS, OR AUTOMATIC GIVE IT RAM AIR BUT MOST IMPORTANT GIVE IT 25 MPG ON HIGHWAY YOU HAVE THE TOOLS BUT NOT THE MIND TRY HARDER YOU COULD PUT THE PEOPLE BACK TO WORK AT THE WIXAM PLANT BUILDING THEM START WITH THE BASICS 6 CLYINDER 3 SPEED ON THE COLUM THEN THE OPPTIONS ALL THE WAY UP TO 500 HP THEY WOULD SELL LIKE HOT CAKES BUT DONT MAKE EM SMALL! MAYBE THE FORD 500 NOSE AND DONT FORGET THE WOOD ON THE SIDES AND THE REAR TAILGATE AND DUAL EXHUST!!!!!!!!//TRY A CONCEPT AND SHOW IT AT THE NEXT AUTO SHOW DONT WAIT TO LONG!!!!

I agree 100%,lets get some chrome back the the cars also.What ever happened to it all.When you washed the vechile it would shine,not like all the plastic and rubber now day's.Let's get back to building cars like we used to instead of copying the other guy's.We need to get our identity back as the number 1 auto builders that we were once before.If you work for the big 3,show your support by buying north american made instead of foreign imports.It could mean one of your family members(Brother,sister,uncle,a unt,etc) could still have a job,after the latest news from Ford and GM.

Unemployed people don't buy new cars. Wake up, Bill and build something that people want to drive and you won't be able to find enough people to man the assembly lines.
All I've heard is the same old lame crap all these years and nothing else changes except the echo keeps getting louder as the building get emptier.

Here's the car you want. Do a google search for Ford Falcon Ute.

www.ford.com.au
www.fpv.com.au

Hey Man, easy on the caps lock dude.

I posted this in another thread, but it's just as applicable here:
The decline of the American economy as manufacturing jobs go to Asia is vastly misunderstood and overstated. Is industrial manufacturing on the ropes in the US? Probably. It's been declining for years - textiles, metals, autos, and so on. But the number of jobs (yes, even middle-class jobs) and the GDP have been growing faster than industrial manufacturing is sinking. The economic base is transforming into technology and services. This will almost certainly continue - industrial workers in Asia are just about impossible to compete with in a global economy. Hits the American industrial worker hard, which is very unfortunate, but the doom-and-gloom scenarios about the American economy completely going to Asia are extremely overblown. Our economy is just transforming sectors. This is why GDP and employment have gone up over the years, even as industrial manufacturing drops.

Three letter tell the story: U-A-W. Oh sure, execs made some poor decisions and the fuel costs crushed the SUV craze. But the bigger issue is the union. For decades, a culture of mediocrity, complacency, and entitlement has grown among members of the UAW.
My brother works (or should I say "worked")for Ford's Hazelwood plant. He has told me many times that on any given day there are only about 40-50% of the workforce at the plant. The others aren't sick or on vacation...they just don't show up to work. And guess what? They don't get fired or reprimanded. They know Ford can't touch them; they are protected by the good 'ol union.
This explains why they are in the diseased state they are in now.
This attitude permeates every aspect of their work life, including how they perform when they actually show up on occasion to put together a vehicle.

That doesnt happen at the Minnesota plant were I work. Missouri is just a lazy state were no one wants to work thats why there closing St. Louis

Missouri MBA wrote:

Three letter tell the story: U-A-W. Oh sure, execs made some poor decisions and the fuel costs crushed the SUV craze. But the bigger issue is the union. For decades, a culture of mediocrity, complacency, and entitlement has grown among members of the UAW.
My brother works (or should I say "worked")for Ford's Hazelwood plant. He has told me many times that on any given day there are only about 40-50% of the workforce at the plant. The others aren't sick or on vacation...they just don't show up to work. And guess what? They don't get fired or reprimanded. They know Ford can't touch them; they are protected by the good 'ol union.
This explains why they are in the diseased state they are in now.
This attitude permeates every aspect of their work life, including how they perform when they actually show up on occasion to put together a vehicle.

Scott, the St. Louis plant was shut down because the products it was producing weren't selling - almost no one was buying the Lincoln Aviator or the Mercury Mountaineer, and the Explorer is overproduced and needs to be scaled back due to falling demand. If it was spittin out Freestyles and F-series, it'd still be churning away.

Many employees take a closure of their own plant, or its surviving the axe, as a testament upon themselves - "we've worked so hard for them, how can they shut us down?" or the flip side "hey, we survived while they closed all those other plants, what a great testament to our produtivity!" In reality, employee productivity (or a states bribing a company with financial incentives - what a useless publicity gesture for politicians) has almost nothing to do with these decisions, it's all about the product that is produced at each plant and that product's demand. It's unfortunate and can be very painful at times, as many of my fellow St. Louisans found out.

Anyways, congratulations Scott on St. Paul avoiding the axe with Round 1, and I really do sincerely hope for your sake that your plant stays running. Per my last paragraph, try to get everyone you know to go out and buy a Ranger.:)

Thanks John we have a bunch of people from St. Louis up here working and they miss home. Now in July there speculating laying off 200-215 people and slowing the line speed down to 38 an hour. I will barely make the cut. It sounds like were getting the new Bronco up here. Were all praying thou cause you know how it is its just rumors untill you see it on paper.

in the 70s i was taking my physical for a new hire at ford in st paul. the companys application asked if i had ever been in the hospital,well of course i was born in a hospital.now at that time i was in my 20s i had broken a few bones, no big deal,well the doc picked up on 10 year old injuries.so that was the end of my phsical the doc told the personnel that i lied on my application.almost worked for ford.well now i'm in my mid 50s retired living in florida,i spent time from the 70s till now self employed building custom motorcycles,and dozens of custom cars.so i take pleasure in the fact ford is on the road to distruction, what goes around comes around.well ford it's pay back time. bye!bye!

Coming from a household that was supported by a UAW blue-collar auto worker, I'm hip to the culture that was built by the union of automotive workers.
The reason why cars cost so much money today is the union.
Now, don't get me wrong, not all union workers are slackers. My father was a hard worker, but hell, all he had to do was show up when he was supposed to and he had a cake job with cake benefits and cake overtime.
Now those days are crashing to end very fast and everybody is freaking out. Benefits are being cut; people are getting axed and the Big Three is nothing more than an ironic name that remembers yesteryear.
We're witnessing the last days of the UAW... and once that disbands, we'll be able to enjoy cheaper cars again made here in America.

www.levelfieldinstitute.com

2,000 plus Manufacturing jobs left Greenville when Electrolux closed up shop and moved to Mexico. In the next 5 years or so United Solar Ovanic will build 6 new state of the art plants here and will replace all of thoose jobs lost. But THEY require retraining and college classes no more High School education or less. We are switching over to a more specialized and educated Job market, have been for years. I know that not every assembly line/factory worker is alcoholic/druggie uneducated redneck, some of the people comeing out of the Electrolux plant look as though they fit the stereotype very well. They were makeing as much or more than myself and my wife combined, and yet some of the "Factory Rats" live in "slumlike conditions" personal choices make a differance in your life. Spend wisely and budget for the end of your job while you have a job. Constantly strive to improve your marketability to a current employer and future ones as well. Complacency is the real enemy, at the big three, the union and the rank and file. Never assume your set for life.

N.American car Companies will bounce back, but in he end for every 1 good union there is 10 bad ones, for every 1 good worker there are 10 bad ones.
Until Ford and GM can find a way to get rid on the negigive people that spend more time bitching or faking injuries than working. Put in people that really want to be there, make a difference in eneryday production Ford and GM will always be behind.
In the United States and Canada we are all guilty of one thing in the last 20 years and that's doing a half assed job's and expecting perfection.
Ford and GM's demise is more on us then anything or anyone else.
To the people that like to work and make a difference in their daily life, jobs, and the world in general...My hats off to you.

just_me I do not know where you work but I am a Ford Auto Worker, the men and women in our plant have an average work load of 53 minutes an hour, and the quality we put out is world class, the misconceptions about quality are amazing, We are very proud of the jobs we do striving to give you the best built vehicle in the world.

of course there is no way of knowing how many people on here have ever seen the inside of an american automotive plant.

Home About Us Level the Field Press Room Join Us Donate Blog Contact Us Domestic Content
Level Field’s supporters, nearly all of whom have worked for one of the Big 3 or its suppliers, believe it’s up to you to decide “What’s an American car?”

But if you care about your car company’s contribution to our economy, get the facts.

One way to judge degrees of “made in America” is to look at “domestic content”– the percentage of a car’s parts that were produced in the U.S. and Canada. Automakers report this information to the U.S. government each year. Domestic content varies from brand to brand and vehicle to vehicle.

We believe a more reliable way to judge how much an automaker contributes to the U.S. economy is to look at how many jobs it produces here.(See our scorecards.) However, because so many Americans work for parts suppliers (about 2 to 3 times as many as work for the automakers themselves), domestic content can have a big impact on jobs.

For 2004 cars, domestic automakers (DCX’s Chrysler division, Ford and GM) automobiles contained 80 percent domestic content, while Japanese, European and Korean carmakers used 31, 5 and 3 percent domestic content, respectively.(ATPC)

Data for 2005 remains incomplete. We will post new data once all companies have reported. However, a recent Detroit Free Press article found that the average content of GM, Ford and Chrysler were 81, 82 and 75 percent, respectively. Toyota, Honda and Nissan automobiles contained, on average, 49.9, 58.5 and 48 percent domestic content.

· For the content of specific vehicles, we encourage you to download domestic content

"of course there is no way of knowing how many people on here have ever seen the inside of an american automotive plant."
Agreed...My apollogies, I don't mean to beat up on the domestic auto workers as my words sometimes are misplaced...
My comments were more slated for the past, I've been raised to not place blame but to look in the mirror when things are down and not to pass the buck.
No one can argue the fact that when you buy a new domestic(in the not so far past) and 60,000 miles in you need a new intake gasket, or 80,000 miles and you are replacing your transmission at little or no help from the domestic companies that you patronise, you are going to loose faith from the masses.
More than anything it sadens me that our quality doesn't and or didn't improve untill the compitition is on top of us.
(we are all better than that)

As far as Ford and it's workers are concerned...my hats off to you and keep up the good work!
Once again my comments were not to bombard you people as it is because of you and the Great improvements over the years that I not only have but did "Rethink Ford" and I'm spreading the word everyday!
After sitting and trying out numourus different Ford models that I can say that today...Not even one of the test drives has dissapointed me.
For all the shit you people go through in this tough time and age of finger pointing and critisizem for Ford and all the domestic companies and keep your head high. It makes me proud to still be a domestic supporter till the end.

I own a 1970 ford galaxy 500 with 125.000 original miles, still using the original altenator, air, water pump engine tranny rear end. and runs great I also own a 1994 ford f150 with 240.000 miles all original. replaced one altenator, my wife drives a 2002 explorer with 130.000 miles without a problem,

and today toyota recalled another 980.000 vehicles for steering problems, all auto makers experience problems.