Car manufacturers under pressure: For the first time strike in Cologne Ford works

There is a strike for the first time in the almost hundred years old Cologne Ford works. The protest campaign against a planned job cut at the location with 11,500 employees should begin on Wednesday morning and last until the end of the night shift on Thursday morning, as IG Metall announced.

Management would like to delete 2900 jobs by the end of 2027 to reduce costs. In contrast, the Sturm union is running. It accuses the tip of the company of a concept of concept that endangers the continued existence of the traditional Ford Germany subsidiary. IG Metall is committed to a social collective agreement that provides for high severance payments and financial collateral for the workforce.

The vote results in high approval

There had already been warning strikes in March and April, after which the negotiations remained. As a result, IG Metall carried out a vote at the Ford works for the first time last week. In the survey, 93.5 percent of the IG Metall members who work for Ford agreed for strikes to increase the pressure on management and enforce their demands. “It is time for the employer to move and get a total solution for the workforce in Cologne,” said Ford Germany’s works council chief, Benjamin Gruschka.

The influence of the German management of Ford-Werke GmbH are limited because the company ultimately depends on its US corporate mother. The parent company recently announced a kind of guarantee and thus increased the pressure on the Germany subsidiary.

Car business is a problem child for US mother-corporation

The US group Ford is strong in the shop with pick-ups and commercial vehicles such as the Transit Transit. The car business focused on Europe is only a side arm of the US manufacturer, which has been making losses for a long time. For decades, the Ford Fiesta small car, which was produced in Cologne, was a sales success, but the sheet gradually turned. Its production was discontinued in 2023.

The group now produces two electric cars in Cologne, the sale of which remained well below the expectations. Investments of almost two billion euros in the new electric car production have not yet paid off. According to the number of authorities, the Ford share of the newly approved cars in Germany was only 3.5 percent in 2024 and thus 1.5 percentage points lower than 2022. The Ford works receive several hundred million euros from the US mother for further investments in a period of four years, but according to industry specialists, this is far too little.

Of the 11,500 Ford employees in Cologne, around 4500 are active in production and 3500 in product development. Around 1,700 people are employed in a spare parts center. There are also the administration and other areas.

In the past few months there had been short -time work in parts of the production, this phase ended at the end of May. The effects of the strikes on the Cologne Ford works are likely to be serious, since the vast majority of employees are union members and the resentment of the current situation is great in the workforce.

According to industry experts, Ford has a dark future with his car business in Europe. “The location is bad and the perspective is even worse,” says the director of the Bochum car institute Car, Ferdinand Dudenhöffer. “Ford is too small in the car sector to work in Europe – that is now and that will very likely be the case in the future.” The quantities sold are too low and the personnel costs are too high. Ford has long been losing market shares in Germany and Europe. “Ford shrinks and shrinks.”

There are two solutions, according to Dudenhöffer: The US mother group could sell its European car business. “Then you would get rid of the problem.” Car production could be preserved in Cologne, but the development department and administrative areas would migrate to the buyer’s headquarters. The second solution would be to found a joint venture with another car manufacturer and thereby get higher quantities and lower costs. “Then you may finally become competitive,” says Dudenhöffer. A possible partner would be Renault.

The director of the Center of Automotive Management, Stefan Bratzel, sees a third way. “The US mother group would have to put billions in the development and production of new electric cars and to upgrade the brand image.” The Ford headquarters in the USA would have to show a determination that it had missed in recent years.

Ford buys central components from Volkswagen for its two electric car models in Cologne. “This means that the added value for Ford is not very deep, which makes the business not very attractive,” says Bratzel. Ford was too late and then only with half strength on the topic of e-mobility. The perspective for Ford in Europe is also bad because the competition in Europe will increase – Chinese providers pushed onto the market.