The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

If Ford Motor Co. Is Poor—The Sky Is Falling

Nov 5, 2007

Ford says it must have labor-cost reductions because it “suffered” losses of 12.6 billion dollars in 2006.

B.S. Even Ford’s own figures show that nearly 10 billion of the so-called 12.6 billion dollar loss is what Ford says estimates it will spend in the future to get rid of people and close plants–but put on their books in 2006. That’s like homeowners trying to claim a tax credit today, for losses they imagine they might incur if a hurricane hits them 10 years from now.

It’s nothing but smoke and mirrors. Don’t listen to what Ford says. Look at what it did. In 2006, Ford paid 53.8 million dollars to its six top executives plus an extra million to Vice-President Mark Fields.

Ford continued to pay out dividends to the rich stockholders to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars for 2006.

In June of 2006, Ford started a 6-year project to invest 9.2 billion dollars in Mexico.

In that same year, Ford made additional investments in operations in Brazil, China and Turkey: 27.5 million dollars for a research and engineering center in China; 375 million dollars in Turkey. All taken out of the books of its U.S. operations.

Bill Ford hired another consultant and paid him $25,000 a day! That amounts to more than nine million dollars in a year.

Ford spent 11 million dollars just to purchase the rights to the Land Rover SUV nameplate!

In 2007, Ford bought a Rumanian car company for nearly one billion dollars, and spent another 500 million dollars to expand a plant in Thailand.

These aren’t the actions of a company without money.

This wealthy company simply wants to steal more money from Ford workers by gutting wages, health care and jobs.