Employees at the Ford Saarlouis plant have been waiting for statements about the future of the location for months. It is now clear: the negotiations between the US car company and a major investor have failed.
The major investor who wanted to take over the Ford factory in Saarlouis has backed out. Negotiations between the potential buyer and the US car company failed.
Ford Germany boss Martin Sander said this S.R, the investor announced last week that he did not want to continue the talks. His company does not have detailed information about why the investor withdrew. The workforce was informed about this at a meeting today.
Negotiations for a social plan are pending
This means that social plan negotiations are now underway. It was said that management wanted to start negotiations soon. If there is no agreement, the works council has already announced warning strikes and a strike vote on an indefinite industrial action.
It is now important to create clarity and security for employees, said Sander SRInterview. Ford confirmed that it wanted to maintain or create 1,000 jobs at the location.
“This is big crap”
“It’s not nice for all of us here today, but it’s not the end of the process. I don’t accept that as the end result,” said Saarland Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger (SPD) at the works meeting today. The fact that the negotiations failed was “big crap”.
IG Metall was “very disappointed and angry” about the investor’s withdrawal. The district manager of IG Metall Mitte, Jörg Köhlinger, said: “Ultimately, we don’t know why Ford, the Saarland state government and the investor couldn’t come to an agreement. All we know is that it couldn’t have been the fault of the workforce and their representatives.”
Employees had high hopes
Production of the Ford Focus will end at the site in mid-2025. The employees had high hopes for today’s works meeting. After months of negotiations, Ford and the Saarland state government signed a non-binding agreement with an unnamed major investor at the end of June. This should have saved 2,500 of the currently around 4,500 jobs.
A binding preliminary contract should be drawn up by September 30th. The IG Metall union, which had demanded high severance payments for the employees, then canceled a planned strike vote.
Minister of Economic Affairs Ford sees it as his duty
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”.