Ford Creates Auto Manufacturing Jobs in Chicago

Posted on August 4, 2010

Ford has committed to hiring over 1500 workers during the next few years, including creating new auto manufacturing jobs in Chicago.
Ford said it’s adding the positions at its: Sharonville, Ohio, transmission plant; Wayne, Michigan, assembly plant; Chicago Stamping Plant; the Sterling plant and Van Dyke transmission plant, both in Sterling Heights, Michigan; and the Rawsonville plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

The work at the Ypsilanti and Van Dyke plants was done by suppliers in Japan and Mexico.

At the Chicago assembly plant, workers will be making $14 an hour, the new entry-level wage, and they will be working on the 2011 Ford Explorer. Ford reps have also said they are adding 1200 jobs and a second shift at the assembly plant.

Ford is currently ranked as the second largest automaker in the U.S.

Ford has said flexible labor contracts are the catalyst that allowed them to add 27% more UAW, or United Auto Workers, jobs than originally planned.

Ford has nine U.S. plants and plans to add jobs at all of them. Ford has agreed to add 1,975 jobs, 416 more than originally agreed to, by 2012 to do work traditionally done by suppliers.

According to an article on Bloomberg.com, Ford said agreements with the United Auto Workers union make the new positions possible by allowing the carmaker to do work in house that it had previously contracted to other companies. Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford said yesterday its retail market share may have increased for the 21st time in the past 22 months.