The Detroit News reports: Ford slashes benefits.
The cutbacks, according to information distributed to workers and obtained by The Detroit News, include two especially painful measures:Must be fun to work at Ford right about now. It's clear that these kinds of cuts are needed across the board, but we certainly wonder whether coughing up millions for Alan Mulally (unproven and unfamiliar with the auto world, other than his purty Lexus) and having a $1 million retention bonus for Mark Fields is the smartest use of money.The elimination of company health insurance for Medicare-eligible salaried retirees in 2008 and the suspension of merit pay raises for salaried workers next year for the first time in 13 years.
In addition, the automaker is hiking health care premiums in June 2007 for the vast majority of salaried workers by about 30 percent -- the second straight year of such increases.
At least they got them Bold Moves ads coming along. And another Way Forward report. And... hey, wait a minute. It's Thursday. Donuts!
You know, if Ford is going to bother to make them little movie dealies, they could be as cool as "The Hire"—the series of BMW Web commercials. They were friggin' brilliant. Did you see 'em?
Wha'dya think?
The movies were great, I viewed them via the BMW website when they came out. Not sure if they are still available there or not but I'm sure they must be floating aroud the World Wide Web somewhere. If you haven't seen them, you need to!
Working at Ford right now must be kinda depressing but knowing that Ford will climb out of this hole and reclaim # 1 status must feel good....
Posted by: John Wayne | Thursday, November 02, 2006 at 03:53 PM