Ford to close Ohio plant, mothball another

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co.’s financial troubles claimed more victims Monday when the struggling company announced that it will close a casting plant near Cleveland in 2009, costing 1,100 hourly workers their jobs.

The nation’s No. 2 automaker also announced that it will mothball the nearby Cleveland Engine Plant 1 for at least a year starting in two weeks due to lower-than-expected demand for its products.

The future of that plant’s 530 hourly workers is under negotiation with the United Auto Workers union, but a company official said the plant would reopen with fewer than 500 production workers because it would be more efficient.

A second engine plant at a three-factory complex just west of Cleveland in the suburb of Brook Park, will remain open, Ford said.

“These are difficult actions, and we’re approaching them with great sensitivity because they involve our people,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s vice president of North American manufacturing. “However, operating an efficient and competitive manufacturing business is a key to our Way Forward plan to transform our business back to sustained profitability.”

The closure is the 10th plant slated to be shuttered as part of a restructuring plan in which Ford said it would close 16 facilities by 2012. Nine of the closures had already been announced.

The casting plant, which makes crankshafts for Ford’s four-cylinder engines, bearing caps, engine blocks and other items, is being shuttered because Ford is getting out of the casting business to save money and focus more on engines, transmissions and other items that customers will notice.