The Chennai Ford Employees’ Union has submitted a plea to the company management to reconsider its decision or to ensure job security in case of sale of the factory to a third party.

Terming the sudden move of the automaker to shut down the Chennai unit as a big shock to the workers, the union said the company had taken the decision as if it was handling machines not human beings. While we reject the company’s decision, we also condemn the move, the union said in a letter to the Ford management.

“We have handed over a letter to the management today to retain manufacturing in Chennai as employees are really worried over their future. The Ford management said it will get back to us,” P Senthil Kumar, General Secretary of The Chennai Ford Employees’ Union, told BusinessLine .

He said that livelihoods for about 2,700 workers of the Chennai factory were at stake.

Production stops

Production activity did not happen at the factory as the morale of the staff was low. Also, the company management did not insist in continuing production. Meanwhile, it was also said that there was some shortage of parts due to which production has been stopped.

Ford has indicated that it will wind down manufacturing operations at the Chennai factory by second quarter of 2022.

A senior official of CITU pointed out that Ford was reported to be working out VRS and other schemes for the workers. He also said that it would be impossible for Ford to redeploy all people in other operations such as engineering and IT services.

The officer bearers of the employees’ union are planning to meet the Labour Department officials to seek their intervention for protection of jobs.

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