Working Conditions in Ford Plants

Ford's Code of Basic Working Conditions applies to our own facilities as well as those of our joint venture companies and suppliers. Since 2004, we have conducted 47 formal assessments of Ford facilities, six of which were joint-venture facilities.

During 2009, we conducted assessments at our Oakville plant in Ontario; our Valencia plant in Venezuela; our recently acquired plants – Troeller in Horizonte, Brazil, and Craiova in Craiova, Romania – and our joint-venture plants in Pleukdang, Thailand, and Chongqing, China. These sites were selected by Ford's Sustainability and Environmental Policy and Supply Chain Sustainability functions based on the sites' impact on our supply chain, emerging issues and the views of thought leaders, nongovernmental organization representatives and human rights activists.

The process for assessing Ford facilities includes a questionnaire to be completed by facility management and a detailed review of documents related to the full range of working conditions issues (e.g., collective bargaining agreements, grievance procedure logs, employee hotline records and health and safety audit reports).

The findings of the questionnaire and document review serve as the basis for interviews with facility management. Where procedures and/or documentation are lacking, or where we feel it would otherwise be valuable, the assessments also include facility visits.

The findings of the assessments are initially shared with human rights organizations with which Ford works and then published on our Web site. We have sought the opinions of neutral third parties who have visited plants and/or reviewed the assessment process, and they have agreed that the process is robust and has integrity.

The findings of the 2009 assessments were generally consistent with those of previous assessments. That is, they confirmed that Ford's wholly and majority-owned facilities are operating in compliance with our CBWC. Reflecting the expanded scope of the CBWC, the assessments also discuss and document community engagement efforts, effects on indigenous populations and environmental initiatives. However, we observed the impact that operating in countries with less-stable governments can make on our own CBWC elements and work rules. We took great care to ensure that these obstacles did not prevent us from achieving our objectives, and we plan to continue to monitor the facilities to detect and address any potential concerns.

We have received considerable and consistent positive feedback from external stakeholders about the policies and systems in place at Ford facilities. While we and our stakeholders have confidence in our systems, we nonetheless believe it is important to continue conducting the assessments given that conditions can change and new issues emerge.