The UGT union has urged Ford's management to specify "certain investment and launch dates" within the framework of the transformation process towards the electrification of the Almussafes plant and has warned that despite the Electrification Agreement "speculations are growing" about future releases of motors, batteries and vehicles.
This was stated in a statement by UGT, the majority union organization at the Valencian plant, after having held a meeting yesterday with the vice president of Ford of Europe, Kieran Cahill, to whom the worker representatives have conveyed the need for the company to comply the agreement "even if dates have to be modified", since "time is of the essence".
Specifically, they have urged the management to resolve the models that are going to be definitively manufactured in Almussafes in the future, both for vehicles and engines and batteries, when the necessary investments are going to be carried out to manufacture them and the way in which This transition will be faced "until the day of the launch of the first electric vehicle".
UGT has shown its concern about the future of the Valencian plant, since it assures that today "there are still no certain investment dates, much less launches", despite having signed the Electrification Agreement. On the other hand, it maintains that it is "already a reality" that the electric platform announced in June 2022 "will not be assembled on the initially planned dates."
"We went on summer vacation warning of the situation we are going through in the transformation towards electrification of Ford in Europe. Far from clearing up uncertainties, the only news that Ford has transferred to the European Committee has been the delay in the launch of the new Explorer, 100 % electric, until the next summer of 2024", has specified the union.
For UGT, "the only positive news is the presentation of candidacy by Ford for the 2nd PERTE." In this regard, the workers' organization has stated that they hope that "it does not happen like the previous time" and the company "ends up resigning", because it warns that on this occasion "there are plenty of margins and there would be no excuses."
