Ford crossover plant being idled due to parts shortage

ERJ staff report (AN)

Detroit, Michigan -- Labour violence at a Ford Motor Co. supplier in India has caused a shortage of transmission parts that will idle Ford's Oakville, Ontario, assembly plant next week.

Ford will lose production of “several thousand” of the crossover vehicles made at Oakville, spokesman Todd Nissen said today. The assembly plant makes the Ford Edge, Ford Flex, Lincoln MKX, and Lincoln MKT.

Nissen said Ford is monitoring the situation, and it could affect other Ford plants.

The Indian supplier causing the shortage is Rico Auto Industries in the industrial city of Gurgaon, just 30 miles outside of New Delhi. Nissen said labor troubles there had caused the shortage of transmission parts.

Labor unrest has flared in the area since the Oct. 18 death of a Rico employee who was killed during a clash between two groups of company employees, according to a report in Business Standard, a leading business newspaper in India.

The newspaper said more than 70 factories were affected by a one-day strike this week.

About 3,000 in workers in Oakville will be affected by the shutdown, said Canadian Auto Workers union local president Gary Beck.

Formal contract talks between the union and Ford on lowering manufacturing costs are scheduled to resume next week, Beck said. The two sides last met formally in September, but have had informal discussions since then.

Ford is looking for similar contract concessions that the CAW agreed to with struggling General Motors and Chrysler earlier this year.

From Automotive News. (A Crain publication)