Us and them at Ford
FORD of Britain is reaching for reverse gear and backing away from the barri- cades, where its 32,500 employees have quite plainly faced the management down. Which was the last private-sector company with a workforce of this size to face a solid strike? Wasn't it Ford, nine years ago? Are Ford and its people peculiarly on terms of confrontation, 'us and them'? What is different about Ford? One difference has gone without notice. Ford of Britain's must be just about our biggest private-sector workforce to have no chance of owning shares in the company. The shares are held by the parent Ford, away in Dearborn, Michigan. I do not suggest that share- ownership will, at the drop of a dividend, convert a truculent workforce into making common cause with its management. I do, though, point to ICI, which, like Ford (before Ford) has had some difficult and painful changes to manage — and has had a share-ownership scheme ever since the merger which brought ICI together. The odd thing is that Ford of Britain was, for much of its history, a company whose shares were quoted on the Stock Ex- change. Dearborn held the controlling interest, and bought the other holders out, with what was at the time the largest cheque ever written. (Its picture appeared in early versions of the Guinness Book of Records.) There are precedents for che- ques moving the other way — ITT offered shares in its British company, STC. How about a British stake in Ford of Britain?
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