This Wednesday, Ford management presented to the unions its intention to open a consultation period to apply a new Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE) at the Almussafes factory (Valencia), which will last until next April. , given the decline in production, as reported by union sources.
This is how the company has conveyed it in the advisory committee held this Wednesday, in which the negotiating committee for this new ERTE has been established, which will meet again next Friday, as detailed by these same sources.
The company has justified the need to carry out this new temporary regulation file, which will begin on Monday, February 12 and will last until April 30, given the “drop in production” in the vehicle manufacturing plants and the “lack of capacity of certain suppliers” in Motors.
Specifically, regarding the impact of this new ERTE, in the Vehicle plants a partial stoppage of 750 daily workers will be established on a rotating basis “where possible”, with a maximum duration of 15 days, while in the Engine plant It will be a stoppage “equivalent to four days of production.”
From UGT, the majority union, they have shown themselves “open to opening a negotiation window partially and limited in time”, although they have advanced that they will inform the management that they are willing to negotiate an ERTE that in no case goes “more there” of the Easter holidays (March 28), while the factory awaits “news on investments and workload.
Regarding the days of ERTE and the number of workers affected, UGT has stressed that they must be “in line” with the “problems that originate” from “the lack of planned production and not from the surplus of personnel” which, according to the union , is originating in the factory.
For this reason, he has urged the company to “adjust the figures well” for this new ERTE, while warning that both the surplus originated in the Engine plant due to the disappearance of the night shift and in the Vehicles plant after The departure of the van destined for the American market “will not be able to add to the daily lists of those affected.”
Thus, he pointed out that on production days in the two shifts of Vehicles (950 cars) and Engines (1,700 units) “there will be no one in employment regulation.” “
On the other hand, from STM Intersindical, its spokesperson at Ford Almussafes, Daniel Portillo, in statements to Europa Press, has asked for caution and “wait until Friday” – when the negotiating commission will meet – to know in detail “the economic conditions and the scheduling” that the company proposes for this new ERTE, aspects that “have not yet been discussed.”
In any case, he has denounced the “brutal uncertainty” that the workforce suffers today, with a salary freeze “in the worst years of inflation for more than a quarter of a century”, while waiting for “economic conditions to come a workload that has not yet been announced.
Finally, he expressed his surprise at the fact that the company is now considering “returning to a normal situation” in the Almussafes factory when it “still” does not have “any type of assigned model of those promised”, in reference to the production of new electric vehicles.
The Valencian factory has been chaining different ERTEs since 2020 and extended the last file until June 30, 2023 due to instability in the supply of semiconductors and derived components.
These temporary files potentially affect, in whole or in part, the entire workforce. During these production stops, workers receive 80% of their salary and 100% of their pay, preserving seniority and vacations.
The Almussafes factory was chosen to produce the new electric vehicle platform starting in 2025, a decision that ensured the workload in the coming years, but did not prevent the workforce from having to be resized with an ERE that has affected 1,124 workers.
The factory stopped producing the S-Max and Galaxy models in April because the multinational is accelerating its strategy towards the total electrification of its passenger vehicles in 2030 and its entire portfolio in 2035. Thus, the Almussafes factory will be left with the production only of the Kuga, in bulk but in the plant, and the Transit. The latter is expected to stop occurring in 2024.
