Jobs on the line at Halewood plant

Date: 13/02/1997

NON-wage costs are not everything. If they were, 1,600 workers at Ford's Halewood plant in Liverpool would be safe in their jobs.

Instead, this week, their unions have come to an agreement with Ford management to eliminate one shift for making the Escort model and transfer production to the firm's plants at Saarlouis in Germany and Valencia in Spain.

The Spanish and German factories together have 13,000 workers, most of whom benefit from rights and attached non-wage costs of which their British colleagues can only dream.

The UK has become the most cut-throat car market in the EU, where manufacturers are forced to offer discounts and inducements to encourage bulk buyers to purchase their cars.

Ford had too much capacity for making Escorts and needed to cut it. The problem for Halewood was that, although its glory days of union militancy in the Seventies were long gone, its productivity levels were still poor in comparison with rival plants.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has calculated that Valencia produces 53 vehicles per employee per year, Saarlouis 50 and Halewood less than 40.

“Halewood was the smallest plant,” says Tony Pugliese of the EIU. “Ford knew the model specifications they wanted and the volumes they needed to cut. Halewood was suited for this.”