Ford Announcement

Today Ford is to release information on thier recent cut-backs. This cut-back is supposed to involve 8,000 salary jobs and 12,000 hourly jobs. Speculation from inside sources has it that there will be at least two plants completely closing in Canada. This would include an F-150 facility. My source claims that the loss of the Canadian plants will be the gain of existing American plants such as Norfolk, VA. which also mfg's the F-150 series trucks.

Also slated for extinction is the Lorain, OH. plant. They currently mfg the Econoline van, and have been on a slow death march for quite some time now. The current Econoline is built on the smaller F series frame. The closing of the Lorain facility would mean that the Kentucky Truck Plant, in Louisville will pick up the new designed Econoline. The new van will be built on the larger F-SuperDuty frames. Kentucky Truck currently mfg's the F-series Super Duty trucks, as well as the dissapointing sales Excursion.

The Louisville Assembly Plant,(across town from Kentucky Truck) which mfg's the Explorer's is expected to not be effected by the changes.

We will see at 9:00 am this morning.

The Ranger was being built in Louisville prior to the edison plant getting it. It was also Mfg'd in St. Paul, MN. I think St. Paul still has the Ranger.

Edison NJ
Ontario Truck
St. Louis Assembly ...all three of these major mfg facilities are history.

Also 2 forge plants in cleveland and detroit closed.

Lorain OH was reported to not get any new models, which equates to shutting down the plant. I happen to know that the reason they didn't list the Lorain facility as a closure is due to the fact that if they did, the union would demand the current workforce at Loraine would be able to transfer to another plant keeping thier seniority. By just saying no more models added to plant gets them off the hook with the current employees there. (meaning they are SOL). Ford can wait a year and design a new Econoline somewhere else. Sounds like a dirty trick, but imagine being a worker who is on top of the seniority list at his plant where he worked for 30 yrs, only to have someone come in the next day from another city and get placed ahead of him. The guy may have worked for many years to finally get the shift he wants only to be rolled for shift prefference by a fella who is from another world.

I do feel for the folks who lost thier jobs.