The Ford Valencia works council, as a member of the Ford European Works Council (CEEF), asks the company to meet with Ford’s global CEO, Jim Farley, and with Bill Ford, executive president, with the aim of informing him the CEEF’s opinion on the situation in Europe and “listen to its proposals”. The latter is what most worries the staff, which in a statement from UGT-PV, the union that chairs the committee at the Valencian factory, points out the company’s indecision to make decisions about electrification.
“The first investments should be taking place to transform the factory towards electrification, but (…) doubts have taken over the future plans, and Ford is having a hard time deciding which is the right bet,” reads the statement.
Workers predict a “quite complex” year, as production of the Ford Transit ceases, but there is no information about the assigned electric vehicles. They believe that the future that awaits them is less rosy than what is published “in the media” and propose a freeze in the negotiation with the company of all types of flexibility measures if it does not act by taking steps forward.
“We will not negotiate flexibility measures, neither temporary nor definitive, as long as there is no type of response from the Company,” they point out in the statement.
The company’s silence on the electric platform in Valencia, which it chose over Saarlouis after signing the Agreement for Electrification that now values ??the UGT-PV, seems to already exhaust the union. The company, which last week held a day on innovation boasting of the technological advances developed at the plant, is always optimistic.
In fact, its still Director of Operations, Dionisio Campos, made an optimistic speech for the auxiliary industry. But they, like their workers, are impatient with the times, knowing that the transition to electric is slowing down not only in Valencia, but in the rest of Europe.
