Ford hopes buyouts help morale, bottom line

“The people who are in that pre-existing program are gone after they make a decision in this window,” he said.

This round of buyouts will be the last that go companywide, Hinrichs said.

During contract talks last year that yielded landmark agreements with all three automakers, some union members criticized the UAW for giving up too much, especially by reducing its membership numbers.

But UAW Vice President Bob King, who led the Ford negotiations for the union, said the buyouts were necessary to help Ford and the other companies return to profitability. The union agreed to another round of buyouts and early retirement offers at all three companies.

“We understand that if companies aren’t viable, you’re going to lose a lot more members,” King said.

Ford and the union, he said, are working together to make the company strong again.

The Ford buyouts, unveiled in January, came as the company lost $2.7 billion last year and $12.6 billion in 2006. The company expects to post another loss this year, but return to profitability in 2009.

Chief Executive Alan Mulally predicted Ford’s U.S. market share will be at the low end of a 14 percent to 15 percent range in 2008, down from 14.8 percent in 2007 and 26 percent a decade ago. Ford fell behind Toyota Motor Corp. in U.S. sales last year, ceding its 75-year position as the nation’s No. 2 auto seller behind General Motors Corp.

The first of the new buyouts will come for workers at closed plants in Atlanta, St. Louis, Edison, N.J., and Norfolk, Va. Those offers close the week of Feb. 28 and employees would leave the company by March 1.

The second round will go to all other U.S. Ford locations, opening Monday and closing the week of March 17. Those workers could start leaving the company April 1, with all of them gone by year’s end.

Ford has about 12,000 U.S. hourly workers eligible for retirement, or about 22 percent of its hourly work force.

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