Negotiation The agreement in Ford Valencia: 7,000 euros more until 2025
The Ford factory in Valencia will manufacture two new electric cars from the year 2025. This has been decided by the management of the multinational, which has preferred the Spanish option to that of the German plant in Saarlouis, with which the Spanish facilities.
The award has been confirmed, say EFE and Servimedia, by sources from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.
In fact, the owner of the portfolio, Reyes Maroto, posted a message on Twitter congratulating herself on the award, which the specialized newspaper
the Automotive Tribune
took for granted this morning.
This puts an end to a process of tense waiting in recent months and on which the future of the Spanish facilities depended.
And it is that, if when the negotiations for the award of this project began,
Ford Valencia produced up to five different cars, soon it will be left alone with the Kuga SUV
with combustion and electrified versions, but not 100% battery-powered.
The new models mean putting the factory on the path of electrification (from 2030, Ford will only make vehicles with this technology) and ensure its future survival.
The unions knew it and the Almussafes management was also aware.
In this sense, practically
the only investment guaranteed for the Valencian factory was related to the assembly of batteries for the hybrid versions of the Kuga, the Galaxy and the S-MAX.
For this reason, in full fratricidal competition with the German plant in Saarlouis, the majority union UGT started an agreement at the end of January to reduce wages and increase working hours.
The objective, to score points against the Germans in cost reduction and productivity, which even caused the division within the works council.
7% of industrial employment in the region
Pending this decision was also the Valencian Government itself, which has been injecting millionaire aid into the plant for years.
Because the future of Ford Almussafes and its more than 6,000 employees is not only at stake, but also that of an entire auxiliary industry that in the Valencian Community invoices almost 12,000 million euros, according to data from the Avia cluster.
Almost 7% of industrial employment in the Valencian Community depends on the automotive sector, which directly employs some 25,000 people.
The arrival of Ford in Almussafes in 1976 meant a before and after for the Valencian industry, only comparable to what could be implied by the expected arrival of Volkswagen in Sagunto with its gigafactory, and that it was also considered that it could add in favor of Ford's permanence in Valencia.
The opposite, as they warned these days from UGT, could mean the Nissan scenario.
Almussafes has been mired in uncertainty for years, further aggravated by the pandemic and subsequent semiconductor supply crisis.
After the initial workforce cuts, with ERE included, the perfect storm has ended up causing a
succession of temporary employment regulation files in the Valencian plant in recent years,
which have also been practically modified on a day-to-day basis depending on the supply and of demand.
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