Thousands more jobs to be destroyed at Ford Cologne

Another jobs massacre is looming at Ford’s headquarters in Cologne. In the last five years, four “restructuring measures” have already cost 7,000 jobs. On Tuesday morning, Works Council head Benjamin Gruschka announced the next job destruction programme at a plant meeting.

Gruschka did not provide any figures, but all Ford workers immediately realised that several thousand jobs were at stake here. Ford currently has just under 13,000 employees in Cologne, less than 4,000 of whom work in production.

Works Council Chairman Gruschka named five points that management had communicated to him. The first is described as a reduction in “bureaucracy,” a synonym for the dismissal of lower and middle management employees.

Points two and three cover the areas of administration, marketing, sales and services, as well as product development. The reduction of 2,300 employees was announced only last year, particularly at the European and international development centre in Cologne-Merkenich. Around 1,700 of the original 3,600 employees there are to leave the company by 2026. Although none of the 1,700 have yet been forced to go, the next wave of redundancies is already rolling in.

Point four once again targets vehicle production. Although several thousand jobs have already been destroyed there with the 2019 cost-cutting programme, production of the new Explorer electric model only began a fortnight ago, six months late.

In management-speak, the impending job losses are being disguised as the “more efficient” organisation of “industrial processes” and the alignment of “structures with Ford’s strategic priorities.” But every worker knows what this means when, according to Ford, it includes “the review of quantities, efficiency and personnel deployment in all production areas, as well as in production-related services and components.”

Point five succinctly states that Ford Europe only wants to “concentrate on its core business.” Gruschka and Ford left open which areas are not part of the “core business” and will be outsourced. Over the past two years, workers, including many from production, have taken part in training and further education programmes at Ford’s expense in order to switch to other professions. It is unclear whether—contrary to the hopes of most—they will now be encouraged to look for work elsewhere.

It is just as unclear exactly how many jobs will be lost. Management intends to announce concrete figures at the end of next week. No one from the senior management attended the plant meeting on Tuesday and there was no official statement. Gruschka only reported verbally.