Ford to Halt Russian Production for Two Weeks

Ford will once again halt production in Russia, as the collapsing demand is continuously reducing the company's sales in the country. Unfortunately, the American manufacturer is once again forced to suspend activities at the Russian plant, this time for two weeks. The plant will resume production on September 14, Yekaterina Kulinenko, PR director at Ford Russia, told ITAR-TASS, according to a report by just-auto.com.

Furthermore, Ford said the Vsevolozhsk plant will operate on a two-shift schedule beginning September 22 while between October 6 and February 5, the company will introduce a four-day workweek.

This isn't the first time when Ford struggles to cope with the recession and tries, through different cost-cutting measures, to align production with the market demand in Russia. The company announced in April that it cut production of both Mondeo and Focus, a decision that led to an avalanche of criticism coming from the workers unions.

"As we forecast continuing overall declines in sales of new cars on the Russian market, Ford ... is proposing to cut the work week to four days, as we did at our European plants," Ford spokeswoman Yekaterina Kulinenko said back in April.

As mentioned, this decision made union representatives to express their disapproval and call for support from government officials who have been asked to investigate the plant.

"The union committee believes the company is conducting its business in bad faith in the financial crisis by imposing a partial work week, and (the union) retains the right to appeal to the regional government ... to investigate the situation at the plant," the union said.