As I write, former Visteon employees across the UK have their fingers tightly crossed as they await the outcome of a second meeting today between Unite union representatives and Ford.
Having staged protests and sit-ins at Visteon UK car-part manufacturing plants in Belfast, Enfield and Basildon for almost three weeks now, the sheer determination of the workers surely stands as a testament to the lengths employees are now willing to go to secure what they believe is a 'fair deal' when they have nothing left to lose.
But employers should beware - if successful today Visteon workers stand to set a very public and very dangerous precedent for future protesters to aspire to, clearly demonstrating that if you hold out long enough you just might succeed.
Comments (2)
as one of the visteon workers who is holding out for "a better deal" may i just say that if ford motor company had honoured existing agreements then no occupations or protests would have ensued.it is surely not a case of employers beware but employees beware because if a multinational entity such as ford is willing to discard employees with such abandon,then what hope people with much smaller and non unionized labour?
the fact that any deal may be struck convieniently overlooks the fact that jobs were "outsourced" to various other "low cost" facilities around the world and bottom line is that my job has gone.no amount of money can compensate me for that.dont even get me started on the total mismanagement of the pension fund.colleagues of mine with 30-35 years service and pension fund contributions are looking at a vastly reduced pension due to the greed and avarice of the people at ford and visteon.people whose pensions just happened to be transferred to visteon engineering services prior to the "liquidation" and are thus not in danger of being reduced.EMPLOYER BEWARE.I THINK NOT!
Posted by robert | May 1, 2009 7:07 AM
Posted on May 1, 2009 07:07
Looks like Kat has been drinking too much corporate Kool Aid. When loyalty doesn't work both ways people end up hurt and aggrieved. In better times when there are other jobs to go to people may decide to move on. In the current climate when there is no plan B the likelihood of workers taking direct action increases.
Posted by KC | May 27, 2009 9:33 AM
Posted on May 27, 2009 09:33