Associated Press
DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 U.S. hourly workers as it tries to further reduce its factory work force.
Ford, the healthiest of Detroit's three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby.
He would not say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance coverage.
Ford currently has 634 blue-collar workers on layoff in the U.S.
Under the terms of a new contract with the United Auto Workers union, the employees get most of their pay for a year depending on seniority, and a portion of their wages for another year before they are removed from the company payroll.
In the past, laid-off workers went into the "jobs bank" and were paid indefinitely even if their factory had been shut down. But the union agreed to scrap the jobs bank earlier this year when all three Detroit automakers ran into financial troubles.
Earlier this year, only 1,000 workers took similar packages, the company said in July.
Ford started 2009 with 89,000 employees in North America but reduced that number to 80,200 as of Sept. 30 through attrition, buyouts and layoffs. In 2006, Ford had 75,000 unionized workers in the U.S., but since then it has closed 12 factories and reduced its work force with buyout and early retirement offers as part of a massive restructuring plan. The company plans to close four more factories by the end of 2011.
