The Daily Echo 2 October 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Thu 2nd Oct 2008

The headlines in this paper over the last week have been grim. Many people are facing an uncertain future as there is talk of job losses in many organisations. This is happening in both the public and private sector. As someone who moved to the area as a result of redundancy I know exactly how unsettling and destabilising it is for people caught in that situation.

At the forefront of the news has been the plight of Ford. It has been a somewhat frustrating and sorry saga. Engagement with the factory bosses has not been as smooth as it might have and much of the information that has come into the public domain has been leaked.

Rather more depressingly, despite constant assurances that the company want to keep jobs in Southampton, the latest news of job cut backs has come out of the blue. As recently as a couple of weeks ago I was led to believe that, apart from the short term contract staff, jobs were safe for a couple of years but that decisions had to be made about the long term future of the plant.

To be fair to the company, discussions about the long term future of the plant were taking place before the recent credit crunch. I have also learnt that, during such times, commercial vehicle sales always show a drop before any fall in private car sales.

One of the problems seems to be that the unions and the workforce appear to be in the dark about what exactly is going on. This is not good for morale as, if there is no open and ongoing dialogue the natural tendency is for workers to assume the worst and look for jobs elsewhere. In this situation an organisation will often lose its best workers first.

On top of this is the concern that, as an American company, Ford will want to put its USA interests first. When push comes to shove, why should there be any great desire to save Southampton? After all, Southampton's link with the Pilgrim Fathers is now somewhat tenuous!

In my experience, when workers are kept in the dark then an organisation enters a downwards spiral. When organisations involve the staff in coming up with solutions then outcomes are nearly always better. It seems to me that it is high time that Ford managers fully engaged with their workers.

Published with kind permission of the Daily Echo