skittet150

Had one guy at our plant, has over 40 years in with the company, hasn't done much for the last 5 years, said he wouldn't take a buyout package because if he did he would drink himself to death. For crying out loud! Get some help! Others say that they won't take it because they will have to spend more time with thier wives. Some of these excuses are pretty pathetic. I can understand if a guy says he isn't taking one because he isn't in a good money situation, or has a kid or 2 in college, but quit with the bullshit excuses!

I'm not so sure that there will not be involuntary seperations in the future. Our reps said that this was said to be a one time shot (buyouts), and at the next contract all bets were off. It is too hard to look in the future to know exactly what is going to happen, but it is almost a sure bet that there will be some drastic changes. Maybe paying for a little more of our health care, gen elimination, who knows. I am an electrician with just over 5 years, and will be eligable to take my Master Electrician exam next fall. That coupled with the discovery that my youngest child has Juv. Diabeties pretty much tells me I have to ride this thing out. If in the future I do get layed off and loose my job, I will only be out 64 grand, after taxes. Health care means more to me right now. I feel pretty confident that I will be around for at least one more year, I have a pretty solid plan, and my wife could go back full time to get bennies, if needed. Most importantly, I was employed berfore Ford, I will be employed after Ford. I have made some good money in my 5 years and don't regret the move. Everybody needs to look at thier own situations and make the decisions for them selves. You could ask any 10 people you know, and I bet you will get 7 different awnsers on what you should do. Only you can weigh the options and make the decision. And I wish you all good luck at whatever you do.

Now that is funny! We got a similar leter at our plant (Pilot Plant) only the major words were changed. It must have been some type pf a form letter that plant managers were instructed to hand out. Either that or your plant manager is my plant manager. Got the letter at the end of shift as we were walking out the door.

Not only that, but what guy in his right mind would leave for 100,000 if he thought there was a chance to stay for even 10 bucks less and the same payout. Pretty sure that if that ever happens, won't be anytime soon.

This one isn't really a waste of money, more than an example of top notch FPS thinking. A department at my plant had a shadow board in front of it for the cleaners (sorry, utility labor helper or something like that) Anyhow, the shadow board is where they keep the brooms and cleaning tools for the shop they are in. It is located in a high traffic area in the plant. Brooms and dust pans have a nasty habit of disappearing from the board and not coming back. How would FPS stop this from happening? Choose your awnser from below....... 1. Relocate the shadowboard in a lower traffic area 2. Find out who is removing the equipment and insist they put it back when they are done 3. Stencil the department name on the equipment. 4. Bolt all the equipment to the board so no one can steal it, or use it. If you awnsered 1,2, or 3, you are not far enough along in the FPS process in our plant. If you awnsered 4, you are FPS material in our plant, and there is a possibility that you will be honored at a rewards and recoginition meeting where you will recieve a coffee mug or something. And I am not embelishing on this story

Exactly! Nothing pisses me off more than to see a plant manager or an office type driving around in a Volvo or Jag, bragging how nice the ride is and what a great car it is while we are fighting to keep our jobs making Fords, Lincolns, and Mercs. Perhaps if they were capible of designing, engineering and overseeing the build of a a hot, quality car, we wouldn't have our problems that we have now.

To believe that Ford supports the homosexual agenda is pretty nieve. They see an opertunity to market a specific group of people, and are doing so, very much like Toyota and the rest of the auto industry. And Ford is one of many employers that offer same sex benifits. Right or wrong, it is just the way it is. Todays media would lay you out and skin you for pulling your advertisements in any medium based on race, religion or sexual orientation. I am not a big supporter of the gay life style, but my God tells me to love my neighbor, and only He is to judge man, not you or I.

And for the record, Mario did open his big pie hole to the reporter. Heard that from a person who was there! But pretty much his whole membership, down to almost every man and woman, signed a petition voicing thier dis-approval of thier presidents comments. So I guess the membership has spoken.

A few years ago at the pilot plant that the electricians couldn't do any construction work because there was no one to pull a permit. But yet almost all of the electrical engineers for the buildings in North America (a good portion of them at least) sat in our general offices up front. Work that we could do, were qualified to do, was being contracted out because our Maint. Super. was too lazy to pursue someone with a Masters license. Thankfully it didn't last long. A few years later, they find a guy who works at the facilities building and is willing to leave his liscense in escroe so he can pull permits as well as sign for us to take our test. Only 2 electricians took advantage of it. The writing has been on the wall for a few years now. They are going to try to generalize alot of trades. They can generalize the electrical sub groups, bur as a whole, we are still electriciand that have alot of specialized training. I would say that pipefitters/plumbers have some of the same. Tool makers in our plant are some of the best I have ever seen, and I am sure it is that way else where. Each trade that has specific tasks or training will have to show some of these idiots who think that one classification can blend in with another that it is easier said than done. There will be some consolidation, I justhope that it isn't done in a way that will put us in harms way or cause Ford alot of money to re-train half of it's skilled trades force. (Everybody, do yourself a favor and don't respond to urallfukt. This crank is nothing more that a dork who likes to stir the pot and get everybody going.)

It is true that there was 245 reps there for that meeting. In my opinion, Mario has been MIA at the pilot plant since his election last year. He has a large group of Metal Model Makers at that plant, and they are all in limbo with what their role will be in the Pilot Plant. He should be on hand during meetings like that, and at least make himself a little more available to the members. There was a day when the 245 prez was very easy to find at the pilot plant, but not any more. I am proud of my union brothers and sisters of 245 for standing up to this guy and letting him know that he should start thinking about members a little more, and quit trying to dictate to them what he think is in the best interests of them. The membership has spoken, now help to make it happen Mario!

Ha, good ole Mario is nothing but a rebel butthead. We had our state of the company meeting at the pilot plant a couple of weeks ago. He wasn't even there to awnser questions for his people, he sent another 245 rep down. We have 2 locals at the pilot plant. My prez was there and indicated to our group that while he rather not do buyouts, he sees the writing on the wall and knows that any fight towards preventing buyouts could spell disaster for the membership later on this year or even worse, next contract. I have to believe that most of the UAW reps want to do the best thing for the membership, and right now, that is buyouts. And for all the people (I have to get this off my chest) who compare this bit of down sizing to that in the 70's, it is no where near the same animal. In the 70's it was a really bad economy, this bit of trouble is competition driven. Cars are still being sold in the market, just not ours. Hopefully our upper management will inspire our engineers to design a few more cars that the public want to buy.

That is a very sad story Cap. I too am an electrician, and do see how dangerous my job is. But we can't loose sight of how dangerous everybody's job can be. This is why we must stick together an be safe at all times, and follow the safety rules that are out there for our protection. My plant (pilot plant) management seems to think that they only need to put one electrician on during the weekends while they are running limited production. This limits our ability to fix anything over 120vac. We can't go up on a lift by ourselves, you would have thought the accident at Livonia Transmission would have reminded them of that. And heaven forbid should there be any sort of problem in a substation on the roof! If we get hurt on the job, and it is found to be caused by us not following safety work ruled, dicipline is sure to follow. I don't have a good feeling about this new 2 trade rumor, I have heard it was being used at AAI and I think it may have been one of the changes at the Dundee Chrysler engine plant in order for the plant to be in Michigan. This has the potenaial to cause our already bad safety numbers to move even higher. Everybody stay safe and take the time to be careful!

I work at NMPDC (Pilot Plant) in Allen Park, MI, and I really can't believe all the foriegn cars that Ford workers drive. When I first hired in I drove Chrysler products. I will admit to leasing one Durango while I worked for Ford, the deal was too good to pass up. But with my company in such dire straits, I will not even consider another vehicle unless it is a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury. And with only 5 years, who knows if this time next year if I will even be here. The mouse driving the Kia is exactly that, a mouse. Tuff when we can't even get our most senior employees to drive our products. What does it tell people when a Ford employee won't even drive one of the products thier own company builds. And if I see one more salery punk driving a damn Volvo or Jag,

I think I work in that plant too!

I can see the headlines tomorrow, "Child chokes on Wheel from Ford Fusion toy" Plastered all over the front pages of the Detroit News and Free Press, a large recall to follow, in which the front page of the said above papers will read "Ford recalls 600,000 Fusions" And yet the media will once again decide just how they want to spin the news that further gives us an undeserved black eye.

Your on the money with management. Useless. I use to think that the "upside down triangle" theory they rammed us our asses was a good idea, then I came to the conclusion that it was implemented to compensate for managers who had no clue. I work at the prototype plant, and I am convinced that they send us all the supervisors that really can't cut it in a real assembly plant. We had an electrical foreman a few years back who was from Buffalo Stamping. Kind of an ego-manaic, not really a good electrician, but when you told him you needed a box of 3/4" mini's, he knew what the hell to get you. All the other useless supervisors and one super. drove him out of the building and into retirement. Went out of thier way to make him look stupid, pissed him off with thier assinine decisions, and drove our department into the waiting arms of a class "A" dork. Now FPS is gonna save all our jobs, make us run more efficient. All it does at our plant is use up alot of paper for charts and graphs that management puts up on a board and no one cares to look at, much less understand. And since it's inception, how much market share has it gotten us? The culture change is happening, we are becoming alot more efficient. Now lets build a car that people want to buy. I have seen some automobiles in our plant in years past that are going to other countries for production. Small cars, great gas milage, exactly what the american public wants, and exactly what they are buying from Honda and Toyota. That is what will save this company. Change with the times, or die. That should be thier motto. Sorry for ranting!

I reciently found out that my F150 SC, 2004, had a leak in the rear of the cab. Seat was all wet. Found out it was the rear 3rd brake light mounted on the top of the cab, I think a gasket was not installed properly. Anybody else have that problem. What did you do? I heard there was a TSB on it.

PFA, it is both refreshing (and depressing!) to hear of somebody with the same problems as we have at our place. I don't have very many positive thoughts of pulling out of our funk we are in, not with the bumbling idiots we have driving our ship.

I never said the trades are the whole problem with this company. We are building cars that people are not buying, I said that in another post. A great many of our supervisors are a bunch of incompitent boobs. That parts from stores with a supervisors signature is a huge joke. I am not sure how FPS is working at your plant, but it is failing miserably at ours. And we have fired or forced retirement on almost all of our senoir engineers who know how to design cars. But one thing we can take care of is how we are percieved around the pland as skilled trades. And I am not saying that you or anyone on this post are guilty of it, but there are certain people in my plant, and by the sounds of it other plants, that just don't think it is necessary for then to stay on sight, or stay awake. I know alot of people who thing that it is ok to sleep, IN THE OPEN, while on the clock. When plant managers see this, or outside engineers, what do you think happens? Nothing good. We can control how we are viewed in the plant. Hopefully we will start soon. I am not sure about your plants, but at our prototype plant, Ford Land is a huge presence, too big of a presence. I know nothing good can come from that.

I had forgot that you could only send 10. We were having a hard time getting ten people at our plant. Still a good time though. We stayed at the Raddison.

I feel for the guys at the other plants. We are going to get offered some buyouts as well. I am pretty low on the seniority list, and I am not too sure how it will turn out for me. I do know one thing. I worked somewhere before Ford, I'll work somewhere after Ford. We have slackers in our shop, some young, some old. The shame of it all is that the guys who are always gone screwing off, or the ones who just don't do a damn thing are in the middle of the pack. Management isn't going to look at how far behind we are in work orders and come to the conclusion we need a Saturday to catch up, they are going to look at the guy sleeping all day in the shop, or the guy on the cellphone running his company while he is on Ford time. They will believe that there isn't enough work to keep 14 electricians working and decide that they only need 12. I am not saying that the guy with more time needs to lose his job, just start doing it. Might ease the pain for me to know that I lost my job for other reasons, not one of my own union brothers taking advantage of a broke dick system. I am not making this reference to anybody posting on this topic. I believe all of us know and see the crap being pulled every day in our plants. I wonder how many others are going to lose thier jobs on this site because of the same thing. I hope I don't. But I'm not betting on my trade or skills to save my job.

I think your missing the point. I am skilled trade, and I do believe that when I am not busy that Ford is making money. Henry said that himself. But that doesn't mean I can go off site and get my shopping done on company time, or take a long lunch, or moonlight on Ford's time. I need to be there for the next breakdown, or maybe doing a PM on a piece of equipment, SOMETHING other than what has been going on in our plant and all the other plants in the Ford system. Don't think for one second that Ford wouldn't love to replace us with a service that wouldn't require them to keep a full time maintenance staff on hand. We are killing our own jobs when we pull that crap. Be to work on time, do your job, and go home when the shift ends, and maybe we can keep our great paying jobs and benifets. If not, we will all be working in job shops, sweating our asses off for half the pay, dispicable health insurance, and no say in our own health and safety. Wake up!

New Model Programs Development Center, Allen Park, MI

It was my first year and I too was pretty surprised that Ford still put it on. There were alot of people in my plant complaining about the money spent to go. We are a small place (Pilot Plant) and only sent 10 people. We have been called on for a few small thing, medicals, etc. and we even have saved the company a buttload of cash by not having to call out a confined space team to moniter entries. It should be looked at as a perk for going through the training that is required to have a ERT crew on hand. We get nothing in return for signing on, except for the training and skills to maybe someday help save a life. I hope they can continue to have the competition.

No clocks at NMPDC (Pilot Plant) Same going on with the supervisors, leaning on them to make sure people are there on time. Still have alot of people who think it is way more important to go out to the driving range and hit a bucket on company time, or take a long break and throw back a couple of cold ones. Alot of good supervisors who let you go out and do your job are going to lose thiers cause some screw up who takes advantage of a supervisors trust hung him out to dry. I haven't been with Ford very long, but nothing angers me more when I see a guy whining cause he has to stay on the job for the same ammount of hours he is getting paid. There are plenty of supervisors who are not putting up with any crap and writing up people who are late. Wake up people, it's thier jobs now! Get your ass to work on time, be productive, and this whole thing will work. Don't get me wrong, we are not the only problem. We are not building alot of cars that people want to buy. But we need to take care of what we can control. And this is not to say we are all screw-up, but I bet you can go down the list and pick them out in your plant. A point can be made to a guy when 4 or 5 guys in his department let him know how bad he is screwing up. Lets fix this thing between us, and we will move forward.