Quote:
Originally posted by Armco Bender
. . . reading between the lines looks like Ford has said get some results our we're out of here.
|
I got a slightly different take on this than mr v. The first article I read on the job cuts stated that these were company wide, and included Cosworth and other parts of the Premier Performance Group or whatever FOMOCO calls Lauda's little domain. This is a standard Detroit practice in tough times. Every part of the whole organization is given a target - say 16% reduction in staff - with no appeals and no exceptions, period end. It is almost impossible to get agreement for such a program, it must be mandated from above and enforced ruthlessly or it will degenerate into chaos.
There may also have been considerable dissatisfaction at very high levels in the Glass House over the unseemly goings on over the Cosworth/Jordan deal. F1 Racing magazine is reporting in the December issue - which arrived yeaterday - that the Jaguar and Jordan PR troops actually came to "verbal and physical abuse" of each other in the paddock at Indianapolis. This is not the sort of stuff that the Directors at The Great Ford Motor Company enjoy hearing and/or reading about. I can just hear someone saying, "If these so-and-sos at Jaguar and Cosworth have got nothing better to do than beat up on each other in public, then it's time for a rif." (RIF in Deotroitspeak is short for "reduction in force.") Not a very scientific method of cost cutting, but stranger things have happened.