Negotiations failed
Major investor leaves Ford employees hanging in Saarlouis
October 5th, 2023, 4:30 p.m
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Bad news for Saarland: The entry of a major investor into the Ford plant in Saarlouis has collapsed – and with it the prospect of around 2,500 jobs. Now IG Metall wants to make the US car manufacturer bleed.
Negotiations between Ford and a major investor to take over the plant in Saarlouis have failed. After a thorough feasibility study and intensive negotiations, including with the Saarland state government, the investor backed out.
The workforce was informed about this at a meeting. As Ford Germany boss Martin Sander said, the investor announced last week that he did not want to continue the talks. The US car manufacturer decided to close the factory in Saarland in the summer of 2022 – bad news for the region. The Focus will still be built there until 2025. What happens next is unclear to the workforce after the investor leaves. 4,400 people currently work there, plus another 1,300 in supplier companies.
Hope had arisen in the summer: at the end of June, after months of negotiations, Ford and the Saarland state government signed a non-binding agreement with an unnamed major investor. This should have saved 2,500 jobs. According to media reports, the Chinese car manufacturer BYD is said to have been among those interested.
Instead of jubilation, social plan negotiations are now underway. If there is no agreement, the car manufacturer’s works council has already announced warning strikes and a strike vote on an indefinite industrial action. According to Sander, the basis for the social plan is 1,000 jobs that have already been promised. They could be “a good basis for creating something like a business park at this location.”
“It will be expensive for Ford”
Negotiations should continue on Monday. “It will be expensive for Ford. We will set an example that will make other companies shy away from shutting down locations,” said the IG Metall union. Ford confirmed that it wanted to maintain or create 1,000 jobs at the location.
According to Saarland’s Economics Minister Jürgen Barke, the country has put a package worth a mid-three-digit million amount on the table. “As a country, we finally managed to agree on the key points of a shareholder agreement for a joint venture with the investor, other partners and the country,” he said.
Now he “clearly sees Ford as having a duty to demonstrate its willingness to secure the future for its employees and to put reasonable offers on the table.” Barke announced that, regardless of this, he would “immediately enter a different mode of cooperation”. A binding preliminary contract should be drawn up by September 30th. IG Metall, which had demanded high severance payments for employees, then canceled a planned strike vote.