LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Thousands of workers at Ford Motor Co.’s Louisville Assembly Plant are laid off this week as the automaker sorts out production issues with its refreshed 2023-model Escape SUV.
Workers are set to return on Feb. 20, according to a layoff memo obtained by WDRB News. However, production at the plant on Fern Valley Road has been day-to-day for the last several weeks. It ran last week before work was stopped mid-week.
The plant, known as LAP, has been plagued by shortages of parts made by suppliers as well as hiccups with the redesigned Escape, its main product. LAP also produces the Lincoln Corsair, but the Escape accounts for the vast majority of its volume.
While the compact SUV is still in the fourth generation introduced in 2020, Ford in October unveiled changes for the 2023 model, which the plant began producing this year.
In January, Ford produced only 3,901 Escape units at LAP, by far the lowest total for the month in company statistics dating to 2020.
In a Feb. 7 memo to employees, LAP Manager Andrew Tapp said the automaker “encountered a few concerns that our engineering team wanted to review and resolve” before resuming production.
“I can’t stress enough that our internal metrics are really good for the new model, and we have made a lot of progress,” Tapp said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by WDRB News.
Tapp did not return a call from WDRB News.
"We are committed to ensuring our vehicles are built with the quality our customers deserve and will take the appropriate actions to deliver this commitment," Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said.
Brandon Reisinger, the plant’s building chairman for UAW Local 862, the union representing rank-and-file employees, acknowledged in a video message to employees last week that the plant’s ups and downs have been “frustrating.”
Reisinger, who did not respond to WDRB News, said in the video that the recent issue has to do with the vehicle’s software.
But unlike in some previous layoffs, Reisinger said, Ford plans to make up the lost production when the plant resumes, so work is piling up.
“We’ve got orders; we’ve got people that are contacting us saying, ‘Hey, can you tell me when my truck’s going to ship?’ So it’s not something where we’re at risk here,” Reisinger said in the Feb. 9 video. “It is just something where they’re trying to get it right for once before we ship the trucks out of the plant.”
LAP is the smaller of Ford’s two Louisville plants. The Kentucky Truck Plant in eastern Jefferson County primarily assembles F-Series Super Duty pickups.
LAP employs about 3,300 hourly workers at LAP as of the last company-provided figures in September 2022.
