Ford Motor Co. unveiled a few details of its much anticipated restructuring plan this morning, and employees nationwide already were expecting the worst even before the announcement was made.

Also, the mayor of Flint, Michigan, has come up with a radical — and possibly illegal — plan: a city-run assembly plant.

The auto industry is bracing for a Ford Motor Co. downsizing that may rival the size and scope of the one at General Motors Corp., where tens of thousands of jobs are being eliminated and several assembly plants are set to close. This as Ford embarks on a new restructuring plan.

The automaker announced some details of the plan, dubbed the “Way Forward,” this Monday morning. Ford said that it will cut 25,000 to 30,000 jobs and idle 14 facilities by 2012 as part of a restructuring designed to reverse a $1.6 billion loss last year in its North American operations. The cuts represent 20 percent to 25 percent of Ford’s North American workforce of 122,000 people. Ford has approximately 87,000 hourly workers and 35,000 salaried workers in the region.

The Associated Press reported a few minutes ago:

Plants to be idled through 2008 include the St. Louis, Atlanta and Michigan’s Wixom assembly plants and Batavia Transmission in Ohio. Windsor Casting in Ontario also will be idled, as was previously announced following contract negotiations with the Canadian Auto Workers. Another two assembly plants to be idled will be determined later this year, the company said.

The restructuring is Ford’s second in four years, the Washington Post noted over the weekend. Under the first revitalization plan, announced in January 2002, Ford closed five plants and cut 35,000 jobs worldwide, but its North American operations failed to turn around. Those job cuts amounted to about 10 percent of Ford’s workforce. The automaker used only 79 percent of its North American plant capacity in 2005, down from 86 percent the year prior, according to preliminary numbers released last week by Harbour Consulting Inc., a firm that measures plant productivity. In contrast, rival Toyota Motor Corp. was operating at full capacity.

Since then, Ford has been unable to keep its sales from falling in the competitive and critical U.S. market. The No. 2 U.S. automaker has felt the pain of falling sales of its until-recently money-making SUVs, growing health care and materials costs, and labor contracts that have limited its ability to close plants and cut jobs. Executives complain that health care costs and other labor expenses — built up after years of negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union — put them at a disadvantage as other automakers push deeper and deeper into the U.S. market. The UAW union will have to agree to some of the changes Ford wants to make, AP said this morning before Ford’s official announcement. Current contracts between the Detroit auto companies and the UAW expire in September 2007.

In addition to the worker cuts and plant closings, analysts say, Ford is also likely to kill some slow-moving vehicle lines, such as the Freestar minivan. Analysts speculate that Ford’s cost-cutting moves will be similar to those announced by GM last year, when the world’s No. 1 automaker said it would close all or part of 12 plants and cut 30,000 jobs by 2008, after losing nearly $4 billion during the first nine months of 2005.

Both GM and Ford have been losing market share in the U.S. as competitors continue to expand their vehicle lineups. As Ford and GM are painfully aware, Time magazine very recently pointed out, “if your metal doesn’t shine in the style department — and you can’t beat your rivals on performance or reliability — all you can offer is a cut-rate deal, a path to financial ruin. What’s a carmaker to do?”

At Ford, Time continued, “the road map looks like this: assemble a squad of ace designers. Put the engineers, bean counters and marketers in the backseat. Wait for the artists to produce gorgeous metal and interiors. Then pray the company can execute.”

Of Flint and Ford, Don and His Plant
In other news today, as yet another auto plant prepares to shut is doors, the mayor of Flint, Michigan has come up with a radical — and possibly illegal — plan: a city-run assembly plant. The aim, IndustryWeek reported today, is to bring much-needed jobs to a town that has sunken even further into despair in the past 15 years.

Ford’s plant-closures announcement later today will fuel the need for new jobs, as will the rumors that Delphi will soon lay off thousands more employees. As noted above, in November GM said it would be closing another plant.

Unemployment in the town is already nearly three times the national average, IndustryWeek said:

Boarded-up houses and businesses darken the city’s streets. Abandoned lots are choked with weeds and trash. Schools are crumbling. It is a scene that is playing out in industrial towns across the nation as manufacturing jobs are shipped to cheaper labor markets overseas.

In Flint, there is both plenty of factory space available and people who are used to working on the assembly line. Once the city proves the plants can make a profit, Mayor Donald Williamson said, buyers are certain to come knocking. It is unclear if the city would be allowed to run a for-profit enterprise. When pressed, Williamson refused to offer more details or even say when he plans on submitting his proposal to the city council.