Tuesday, January 17, 2006
600 Ford Workers to Lose Jobs in Windsor
I was saddened to hear that a friend of mine just received his layoff notice from Ford's Windsor Engine Plant. According to my friend, this is part of a planned reduction of 600 hourly employees locally at Ford. Attrition and layoffs will be the main instruments Ford will use to reduce its workforce numbers. This is a severe body blow to the Windsor economy, which is currently saddled with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.
The interesting part of this story is that Ford will not be announcing these cuts until sometime shortly after the federal election. This is a curious decision to make when the layoff notices are being handed out now. Could it be that Ford management is trying to influence the election in some way? At this time I am at a loss to guess what purpose they would have for doing this other than to keep the news off the front pages, saving the Liberals another embarrassing campaign moment since the smoking hot economy is the party’s biggest attribute.
Locally, this would be bad news for one candidate in particular. Susan Whelan’s equity would be reduced because she has been shamelessly promoting herself as the saviour of the local auto industry because of a $46 million grant from the now defunct Technology Partnerships Canada program she helped acquire on behalf of Daimler Chrysler. Her motives for working on behalf of the automaker were less than altruistic. Ms. Whelan worked as a paid lobbyist for Daimler Chrysler, being paid handsomely for her efforts. Secondly, Whelan has been working hard to unseat Conservative upstart Jeff Watson since he defeated her in the last election. Apparently, it is not Windsor’s economy that Whelan is referring to on her website “…building an economy with unemployment at its lowest rate in thirty years…”
The interesting part of this story is that Ford will not be announcing these cuts until sometime shortly after the federal election. This is a curious decision to make when the layoff notices are being handed out now. Could it be that Ford management is trying to influence the election in some way? At this time I am at a loss to guess what purpose they would have for doing this other than to keep the news off the front pages, saving the Liberals another embarrassing campaign moment since the smoking hot economy is the party’s biggest attribute.
Locally, this would be bad news for one candidate in particular. Susan Whelan’s equity would be reduced because she has been shamelessly promoting herself as the saviour of the local auto industry because of a $46 million grant from the now defunct Technology Partnerships Canada program she helped acquire on behalf of Daimler Chrysler. Her motives for working on behalf of the automaker were less than altruistic. Ms. Whelan worked as a paid lobbyist for Daimler Chrysler, being paid handsomely for her efforts. Secondly, Whelan has been working hard to unseat Conservative upstart Jeff Watson since he defeated her in the last election. Apparently, it is not Windsor’s economy that Whelan is referring to on her website “…building an economy with unemployment at its lowest rate in thirty years…”
