I wrote about leafleting a local factory a few months ago. At the time I was fairly downbeat about the situation there and sank into reminiscence. Turns out I was wrong and that the redundant workers at Visteon Enfield are now in a roof top occupation of the plant. I was there again this Saturday for a rally to support them.
What has happened at Visteon is pretty much a tale of what has happened to British manufacturing industry in general. Ten years ago this was a Ford plant but a decision was made to 'outsource' component manufacturing and so the former Ford staff were transferred to Visteon under their previous terms of employment.
More recently production at the Visteon site has been progressively run down as suppliers with cheaper labour costs have been used - there are rumours of production moving to South Africa . In what can only be seen as a cynical use of a good day for bad news - the week of the G20 was used to announce the closure of the plant. The workforce were told that the company had gone into administration and that they were to quit the building more or less immediately. Contrary to the promises made by Ford, the redundancy payments from Visteon do not honour the old contracts.
Regardless of the legality or morality of the situation - unless the dispute now spreads to Ford itself it is difficult to see a way forward. But this is a real possibility, and the way in which the occupation has snowballed from Visteon's Belfast factory to the Basildon and Enfield sites is an indication of how these situations can be escalated.
I don't know how this is going to play out, but I am sure though that this dispute, and others like it, are are of far more significance than breaking a few windows at a bank.
Messages of support to:
supportvisteonworkers@hotmail.com
What has happened at Visteon is pretty much a tale of what has happened to British manufacturing industry in general. Ten years ago this was a Ford plant but a decision was made to 'outsource' component manufacturing and so the former Ford staff were transferred to Visteon under their previous terms of employment.
More recently production at the Visteon site has been progressively run down as suppliers with cheaper labour costs have been used - there are rumours of production moving to South Africa . In what can only be seen as a cynical use of a good day for bad news - the week of the G20 was used to announce the closure of the plant. The workforce were told that the company had gone into administration and that they were to quit the building more or less immediately. Contrary to the promises made by Ford, the redundancy payments from Visteon do not honour the old contracts.
Regardless of the legality or morality of the situation - unless the dispute now spreads to Ford itself it is difficult to see a way forward. But this is a real possibility, and the way in which the occupation has snowballed from Visteon's Belfast factory to the Basildon and Enfield sites is an indication of how these situations can be escalated.
I don't know how this is going to play out, but I am sure though that this dispute, and others like it, are are of far more significance than breaking a few windows at a bank.
Messages of support to:
supportvisteonworkers@hotmail.com
1 comment:
"I don't know how this is going to play out, but I am sure though that this dispute, and others like it, are are of far more significance than breaking a few windows at a bank."
Couldn't agree more!
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