- Friday, February 21, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
HUNDREDS of workers at a Ford Motor Co factory in the western Indian state of Gujarat on Tuesday (21) staged a protest outside the automaker’s plant demanding that the company either scrapped its closure plan or provided jobs to its employees.
The workers in blue uniform gathered outside the American auto major’s manufacturing and engine-making facility in Sanand in Gujarat and said the shutting down of the plant would leave several people unemployed.
“After working here for seven years, I am suddenly being told I do not have a job. What is my future?” Anil Singh Jhala, one of the workers, told Reuters in a tone of disappointment.
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“Our demand before the company and the government is that the plant should not be shut,” he added. “If the plant is going to be shut, our request to the government is that when any other plant comes up here, we should get priority for jobs there at the same wage,” he said.
“We are in shock since the announcement,” Jaisukh Kandolia, an employee who had been working at the Ford plant since 2016, said.
US auto major Ford to stop India production
“We have been told the plant will close by December 31,” he said. “We do not know what we are going to do in the future.”
Ford, which set up its first factory in India in the 1990s, said earlier this month that it planned to halt making cars in the country as it doesn’t see itself making profit in its market. The company, which takes a $2billion hit, is reportedly planning to redirect capital to electrification and investment in technology it needs to survive.
The plant in Gujarat employs around 1,200 people, a Ford India spokesperson said in a statement.
“We will be working with the unions and other stakeholders on measures to help balance the impact and to care for those directly affected by the restructuring,” he added. “We have started discussions with the union and have nothing additional to share.”
A number of automakers have exited the Indian market of late and the trend has added to the country’s unemployment woes, posing a major challenge to prime minister Narendra Modi’s promise of generation and jobs and thrust on ‘Make in India’ campaign.
