Ford’s future in Cork uncertain amid claims Corporation is handicapping business
Cork, 7 March 1922 – The future of one of Cork’s biggest industrial employers, the Ford Motor Factory, is in doubt amidst deteriorating relations between the company and Cork Corporation.
Cork Corporation has recently served notice on the factory owned by Henry Ford and Son calling upon them to fulfill the terms of the contract agreed when the marina site was purchased.
The terms of the lease on the site called on the company to provide for the employment of 2,000 men within two months from 25 February 1922. Currently, the Ford factory directly employs 1,500 men with many hundreds of others indirectly dependent on the company for their livelihood.
On behalf of the firm Edward Grace, managing director, has replied that the action of Cork Corporation had been brought to Mr Ford’s notice through the American press and that Ford had immediately sent word that it would be impossible for the company to continue to do business in Cork unless the corporation ‘immediately agrees to waive the enforcement of a few covenants in the lease which are still unfulfilled, and to convey to us a reversion in fee simple of the lands held under same, thereby terminating the possibility of further friction and annoyance’.
Nuacht TG4 report on the centenary of the opening of the Ford facility in Cork
Edward Grace asserts that the real purpose of these stipulations was to ensure the establishment of a ‘bona fide manufacturing enterprise’ and he claims that this goal had already been reached. Mr Ford is determined ‘not to submit further to conditions which would be a perpetual irritation and handicap to our business, and which cannot now be justified.’
According to Grace, Mr Ford is of the opinion that if Cork Corporation persists with its present attitude the company will ‘take the necessary steps to close the Cork factory, surrender the premises, and transfer our enterprise to some other locality where it will not be similarly handicapped’.
As a consequence Cork Corporation’s recent actions, work on the erection of machinery and equipment at the Fordson Works has been halted and 500 men have lost their jobs.
The Cork Examiner has described the situation and the prospect of a Ford withdrawal from Cork as ‘appallingly grave’ and claims that the local public ‘stands aghast at the possibility of an industrial calamity which the meddlesomeness and stupidity of a small Corporate coterie have been instrumental in bringing on the community.’
In an editorial published today, the Examiner says that the people of Cork feel that the company had been treated badly – a company that had already spent £700,000 in wages locally and whose weekly payments to its employees exceeds £8,000.
The newspaper also highlighted that under the influence of the Ford Company the marina had been transformed from being ‘practically derelict’ into a ‘hive of industry’.
Cork Marina in 1917 (above) and in 1922 (below): two images showing the amount of development brought about by the arrival of Ford in Cork (Image: Cork Examiner, 2 March 1922)
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
