27,000 Ford Workers Take Buyouts

About 27,000 U.S. hourly workers have left Ford Motor Co. under buyout or early retirement offers, the automaker said Thursday.

Ford offered the packages last year in an effort to reduce its work force to match lower demand for its cars and trucks.

Initially about 37,000 workers signed up for the offers, but not all have left the company, it said. Ford has until September to phase in the departures as it closes plants under a restructuring plan, and some of the workers could change their minds and stay with the company.

Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said about half the 27,000 who left were not eligible for retirement, which will reduce the company's long-term retiree health care liabilities. At the end of 2006, Ford's unfunded retiree health care and life insurance liability was $25.9 billion, according to its annual report.

The health care costs likely are to be a major topic during national contract talks with the United Auto Workers this summer.

About 8,000 workers left Ford last year and 19,000 so far this year, Evans said.

The figures include workers at Ford plants as well as factories the company took back from Visteon Corp., its former parts operation that was spun off as a separate company in 2000.

Dearborn-based Ford lost $12.7 billion last year and has mortgaged its assets to fund its turnaround plan.

Ford intends to close 16 manufacturing facilities by 2012 as part of its Way Forward plan. So far, it has identified 10 of the plants to be shuttered.

When it announced the buyout and early retirement offers in September, Ford set a goal of shedding up to 30,000 hourly workers by the end of 2008. The company said Wednesday that the goal will be achieved before 2008.

All of Ford's production workers were offered buyout and early retirement plans worth up to $140,000. The company now has about 60,000 workers represented by the UAW in the U.S.