Ford to offer “over €77,000” per redundant worker

The head office of Ford is prepared to pay redundancy premiums of more than €77,000 to each staff member at the Genk plant, the Corelio press group reports. The unions are keeping their cards close to their chests. Just two days after the announcement of the plant’s closure, the unions now have the unenviable task of sitting down for negotiations with Ford’s management and trying to salvage the best possible deal for workers. American finance director Bob Shanks (pictured) was the first to come up with concrete figures, suggesting “obviously more than $100,000”. While this may appear to be considerable, it is significantly less than what was paid by General Motors (€153,000) and Volkswagen (€144,000) following mass redundancies in Antwerp and Forest respectively. Whether the unions agree with the pay-outs or not will have to wait, however; the law dictates that the first round of talks following the announcement of mass redundancies concerns the possible salvaging of jobs rather than compensation.