Ford is in talks to expand buy-outs among its 82,000 US blue-collar workers as part of an accelerated restructuring plan, a United Auto Workers union leader has told his members.

The troubled carmaker is expected to unveil the revised turnround plan within the next two weeks in a renewed drive to meet a target of restoring its North American operations to profitability by 2008. Ford announced plans in January to close 14 factories and eliminate 30,000 jobs by 2012 under a recovery plan known as The Way Forward.

But sliding sales of profitable sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks as well as intensifying competition have forced Ford to revisit the plan. A pledge to reverse market share loss this year is unlikely to be met.

Tim Levandusky, president of a branch in Brook Park, Ohio, told his members Ford had asked the UAW "to consider extending and expanding the buy-out programmes for our membership".

General Motors, Ford's bigger Detroit-based rival, offered early retirement and severance packages to its entire US blue-collar workforce this year. Close to a third of the 113,000 eligible employees accepted, and almost all are expected to leave the carmaker by the end of the year. Ford has offered five different buy-out packages since January on a plant-by-plant basis.

As of August 1, 5,600 workers had accepted, including some at Automotive Component Holdings, a group of more than a dozen loss-making plants that Ford took over late last year as part of a bail-out of Visteon, a parts supplier spun off by the carmaker in 2000.
Jim Stoufer, who heads a UAW branch in Kansas City, said on Thursday that Ford had yet to come forward with a firm buy-out offer.

Mr Stoufer added that his members had mixed feelings about an expanded buy-out: "Some want to go, and some want a job."
Mr Levandusky told his members that a majority of union leaders favoured buy-outs "due to the impact that further restructuring may have on the membership".

Ford has stepped up its turnround efforts on several fronts over the past few weeks, putting Aston Martin, the UK-based luxury sports car maker, up for sale, and hiring Alan Mulally, former head of Boeing's commercial aircraft division, as chief executive.

Some analysts expect that it will further break up its international luxury car group by putting the troubled Jaguar brand as well as Land Rover up for sale within the next couple of months, leaving only Volvo.