Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, U.S. Rep John Dingell and United Auto Workers Vice President Jimmy Settles joined Ford officials at the event. Many of the public officials praised the workers as the embodiment of how resilient the automotive industry has come. Snyder also noted the blue oval employees should particularly feel ''special pride'' in knowing Ford wasn’t part of the 2008-2009 automotive bailout.
FLAT ROCK, MI- Dale Niesen has waited nearly half his life to join his family as part of the “Ford family.”
The 53-year-old Brownstown Township resident’s grandfather, uncles and brothers have all worked strictly for Ford Motor Co., and now he can say he continues that family tradition.
“It’s fantastic,” Niesen, a quality control worker at the newly renamed Flat Rock Assembly, told MLive.com Monday. “I’ve been waiting 25 years for us to become a full-fledged member of the Ford family.”
Niesen was one of about 1,500 employees from the facility to attend a ceremony Monday to celebrate Ford assuming full management control over the 2.9-million-square-foot facility, which was previously known as AutoAlliance International under a joint venture with Mazda Motor Corp.
Following the end of Mazda6 production last month, the plant will continue to produce Ford’s iconic Mustang before adding the 2013 Ford Fusion next year.
“This facility has a very unique past and it has produced a lot of important vehicles for two different companies at the same time,” said Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields at an event Monday morning outside the facility. “Just as proud we are about our heritage, we are even more excited about our future.”
Officials said the Fusion, which will continue to be built in Mexico as well, will take the space left by the Mazda midsize sedan, which is now produced in Japan.
The addition of the Fusion, officials say, means a $555 million investment for the plant and a new second shift with 1,200 new employees. The plant, which will only produce the gasoline-engine fusions, currently employs about 1,700 workers.
Hiring for the new jobs will begin next year and be a mix of temporarily laid off employees and new hires, according to a Ford spokesman.
Ford also plans to install a flexible assembly line that allows the automaker to build nearly every type of vehicle at the facility without a full shutdown to retool, according to Jim Tetreault, Ford vice president of North American manufacturing.
“This plant has a very bright future,” Tetreault told the plant workers who gathered outside the plant, adding the flexible line provide better job security.
"If we need another vehicle, this plant will be in the running for it," he said.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, U.S. Rep John Dingell and United Auto Workers Vice President Jimmy Settles joined Ford officials at the event.
Many of the public officials praised the workers as the reason for why the automotive industry has come so resilient.
Snyder also noted the blue oval employees should particularly feel “special pride” in knowing Ford wasn’t part of the 2008-2009 automotive bailout.
“Over the next 60 days, there’s an election going on and you’re going to see the airways filled with the words bailout and bankruptcy, and one thing of special pride that I hope you take home and share with all your friends is it wasn’t about bailouts and bankruptcy,” he said. “It was the American auto worker and the American auto companies that came back and you should take great pride that Ford didn’t use either one of those.”
Ford also plans to upgrade the plant’s paint shop with an environmentally friendly "Three-Wet" paint process. The Three-Wet process allows three layers of paint to be applied one after another while still wet, with less manual intervention, resulting in a superior product created with fewer pollutants and less expense.
Niesen said he looks forward to more investments and jobs coming to the facility now that it is fully managed by Ford. “It’s exciting to see all the new programs and a lot of new faces coming on board,” he said.
The Flat Rock facility, which has been a joint venture with Mazda since 1992, continues to be owned by a 50/50 split between Ford and Mazda. No Mazda vehicles will be produced at the facility, according to officials. The plant originally opened in 1987 as Mazda Motor Manufacturing USA.