Ford Motor Co. is ending its decadeslong contract with car hauling company Jack Cooper, a move that has enraged the Teamsters union — which indicated it will fight for the 1,400 union jobs at the hauling company — and created what its CEO told the Detroit Free Press is an “existential crisis” endangering the future of the hauling company.
The layoffs will affect about 100 Jack Cooper employees in metro Detroit.
Ford, which is Jack Cooper’s second-largest customer behind General Motors, notified Jack Cooper that it ended its contract with the hauler on Jan. 2, with a 30-day notice, according to two people at Jack Cooper as well as an internal memo sent to Jack Cooper employees Tuesday at its facility in Liberty, Missouri. That memo was obtained and first reported by trade publication Freightwaves. The people asked to not be named because of strict confidentiality agreements between Jack Cooper and Ford…