Sheet Metal Stamping Simulation

Flanked by dozens of auto workers at Ford Motor Co.’s Claycomo plant, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday urged the General Assembly to pass legislation to provide the automaker incentives to bring a new vehicle to the plant.

Nixon made his pitch for the Missouri Manufacturing Jobs Act as the legislature’s current session is set to end Friday evening.

If investments are made to bring a new product to a plant, the measure would let manufacturers keep half of the employee withholding taxes they would normally pay. The incentive could last up to 10 years with an annual cap of $15 million that a company could keep.

The incentive program would apply to all manufacturers with Missouri operations, but the bill was written with the future of Ford’s Claycomo plant in mind. The facility employs more than 3,900 people, building the F-150 pickup truck and the Ford Escape SUV.

But experts in the auto industry are speculating that the next-generation Escape will be built at a Ford plant in Louisville, Ky., possibly as early as 2011. That has created some concern among local and state economic development officials, as well as Ford’s local work force.

Nixon noted that Missouri was competing with neighboring states to keep good-paying manufacturing jobs. He added that the state was hit hard by the auto industry turmoil of the past few years.

Missouri continues to have about 25,500 jobs tied to the auto sector, but Nixon said the state had 40,000 automotive jobs in 2004.

If the General Assembly fails to act on the bill, “we have challenges we don’t need,” Nixon said.

Ford has made no announcements about production plans at Claycomo, and that didn’t change Tuesday.