Ford’s Tricky Move For Another $1.6 Billion Production Plant in Mexico Irks Deceived UAW
By Staff Writer
Apr 06, 2016 05:10 AM EDT
Regions
Ford Motor Co., the Detroit, Michigan based multinational automobile company, has been planning to spend $1.6 billion to develop a new car factory in Mexico. The planned move appears as the second largest expansion announcement for Ford. It is expected to help the auto-manufacturer to double its Mexican production starting in 2018.
The second largest auto-maker in the US has announced last April outlining a $2.5 billion production investments in Mexico. The move is expected to create 6,600 jobs in the country over the next few years. The new plant, in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, aims to build small cars the company is struggling to sell at a profit, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers (UAW), a rights platform for automobile workers, has rallied on Tuesday in front of Ford Motor Co. The rally has demonstrated protest against company's announcement for building new small-car plant in Mexico.
Ford also plans on creating 2,800 additional direct jobs by 2020 with the new plant. However, UAW considers that the offered jobs rightfully belong to the US and may be in the company's backyard in Wayne, Michigan, according to a report published in ABC News. However, the jobs or at least a part of the jobs may have retained in the US if UAW President Dennis Williams and his cohorts negotiated the contract differently last year. The union has sacrificed the small car jobs in their new labor contract leveraging the threat of strikes and risking the long-term interests of the union. The decision to take the union's strategy to its logical conclusion doesn't require a hefty brain storming for the Ford CEO Mark Fields. Fields simply has moved towards the direction in which UAW internal politics forced Ford to go. Ford is going to create a few thousand jobs in Mexico which is arguably equivalent to those enjoyed by the union members at its Wayne assembly plant building small cars. New products will be added in that plant in the near future. Furthermore, widespread rumors suggest that the company has been building every facility inside the plant for the production of Ford Brono to Ford Ranger mid size truck, reports Forbes.
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