The negotiations between the US car manufacturer ford and a major investor to take over the plant in Saarlouis failed. The company informed the workforce about this on Thursday. Like FordGermanyCEO Martin Sander explained that the investor had announced last week that he did not want to continue the talks.
The deal with the major investor should have secured at least 2,500 jobs. Negotiations on a social collective agreement are now scheduled for Monday. If there is no agreement in the negotiations, the works council has already announced warning strikes and a strike vote on an indefinite industrial action. Production of the Ford Focus will end at the site in mid-2025. 4,400 employees currently work there, plus another 1,300 employees in supplier companies.
The Ford works council in Saarlouis reacted with horror to the news. “This caught us completely unprepared and absolutely surprising,” said works council leader Markus Thal. The works council and employees had hoped to be able to save as many jobs as possible. The plan was to continue building vehicles with around 3,000 employees in the factory and to accompany the transformation to e-mobility together with the supplier companies from the Supplier Park. Now it’s a matter of negotiating the social collective agreement conditions for 2,850 employees for whom there will no longer be any employment from mid-2025. “An investor solution seems unlikely due to recent developments,” said Thal.
Social plan negotiations are scheduled to begin on Monday
Ford confirmed that it wanted to maintain or create 1,000 jobs at the location. “These can also serve as a basis for a future technology center in Saarlouis, which offers significant potential for developing the plant and attracting other, smaller investors,” Sander continued.
According to Saarland’s Economics Minister Jürgen Barke (SPD), the country has put a package worth a mid-three-digit million amount on the table. “As a country, we finally managed to agree on the key points of a shareholder agreement for a joint venture with the investor, other partners and the country,” he said. Now he “clearly sees Ford as having a duty to demonstrate its willingness to secure the future for its employees and to put reasonable offers on the table.” Barke announced that, regardless of this, he would “immediately enter a different mode of cooperation”.
Ford wants to only build electric cars in Europe from 2030
It has been known since last summer that Ford wants to close the plant. Ford decided not to build electric cars in Saarlouis in the future, but in Valencia, Spain. According to previous statements, the US car manufacturer wants to only produce electric cars in Europe by 2030.
Compared to its competitors, Ford made the strategic pivot away from combustion engines towards electric cars comparatively late and is suffering from eroding market shares in Europe. In the first half of 2023, the share was around 5.7 percent. Eight years ago it was around 8 percent. Electric cars are still a losing proposition for Ford. In the first half of the year, the group said it made a worldwide loss of the equivalent of $1.8 billion.
The employees in Saarlouis had high hopes for the works meeting on Thursday after concrete agreements with an investor were reported at the end of June. A binding preliminary contract should be drawn up by September 30th. The Union IG Metall, which had demanded high severance payments for employees, then canceled a planned strike vote.