WORKERS AT Visteon, Ford’s component supplier, are bracing themselves
for the next stage in the company’s attacks on their jobs, pay,
conditions and pensions.
A Visteon worker
National talks with the company have been adjourned since the unions
insisted that any concessions in the four UK plants would have to be on
condition that pay and the final salary pension would remain intact.
This would ensure that the contract that Visteon’s ex-Ford workers are
on remains ‘mirrored’ to that of the ‘blue oval’ [Ford].
But Visteon view these pay and pensions as ‘excessive’, hence an
adjournment that has lasted almost three months. Visteon workers are now
waiting for the next announcement from the US which could lead to plant
closures in the UK and the rest of Western Europe and/or moves to attack
the final salary pension scheme.
Since Visteon moved its chassis/powertrain plants in the US back into
Ford control last year, the UK counterpart plants in Swansea and Belfast
appear to be particularly vulnerable.
Visteon has declared they are facing a "difficult business situation"
at their Swansea plant, where 700 people work. The company says they
cannot guarantee work after the existing contracts run out in 2008.
At local and national level, the unions have made it clear to Ford
and Visteon that any attempt to close a UK plant will trigger a national
dispute. Support for resistance must be built from the shop-floor up.
