By Rachel More
BERLIN (Reuters) -Ford has agreed to a job protection scheme at its Cologne plant covering over 10,000 workers, with voluntary redundancies planned in response to the sluggish uptake of electric cars, the company and German employee representatives said on Friday.
Ford has been undergoing a painful restructuring in Europe, with cuts in Cologne and the upcoming closure of its Saarlouis plant dealing a fresh blow to Germany’s prestige as a carmaking hub.
Ford said in a statement that the framework, valid through 2032, includes 2,900 job cuts announced by the company in November last year.
“The job cuts are primarily based on voluntary redundancies. The severance payments are generous and significantly better than usual in the automotive industry,” works council head Benjamin Gruschka said in a statement.
The IG Metall union said the future of Cologne production remained unclear but welcomed the “safety net.”
Ford, which invested $2 billion in transforming its Cologne site into an EV production hub, has called on the German government to provide more incentives and better charging infrastructure to help drivers transition to electric.
IG Metall said the agreement for the Cologne site included the option for workers impacted by the cuts to trade places with people from other parts of the company willing to leave.
The deal is still to be approved in a workers’ ballot.
(Reporting by Rachel More, editing by Thomas Seythal)
