Around 30 Take Latest Ford Buyout Offer

Local United Auto Workers union officials say they were surprised at the number of Ford workers who accepted the company’s latest buyout offer, which ended Friday. It was the fourth such offer from the company since 2006, as they try to reduce their workforce.Scott Eskridge is the union chairman at the Kentucky Truck Plant. He says the number of people taking the buyouts is falling dramatically.“We’ve had so many buyouts over the last couple of years, we’ve had roughly 15-hundred people take the buyouts," says Eskridge. "So the ones that are here now have anywhere from ten to fifteen years seniority, and once you’re that invested, it really hard to try to go anywhere else and start over.”Eskridge says 13 people out of nearly four-thousand employed at the Kentucky Truck Plant took the latest buyout offer. Another twenty or so took the buyout at the Louisville Assembly Plant, which employs around two-thousand.That plant (LAP) is slated for re-tooling next year, and will be converted into producing smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.