Visteon Workers Solidarity Appeal

Visteon Workers Solidarity Appeal

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

We are asking for your support. On Tuesday 31st March workers of Visteon plants at Basildon and Enfield in England as well as Belfast in Northern Ireland were called to meetings and told that Visteon had just gone into liquidation and we were sacked. After decades of work for Visteon and Fords we were given just minutes to collect our things and go. We were told to apply to the government for statutory redundancy money, which can take weeks. We have not been paid for our last week's work and our pensions are frozen.

When we were transferred from Ford Motor Company to their "spin off" company Visteon in 2000 we were promised exactly the same terms and conditions, which included enhanced redundancy payments. Visteon is hiding behind "bankruptcy" to go back on this promise and leaving many of us worried about how we are going to pay the mortgage. Yet we have reason to believe that managers at Visteon have set up a "new" company and their current actions are a cynical attempt at asset stripping and above all to get rid of workers at no cost to themselves.

Visteon workers at all three plants are not taking this lying down. Belfast are still occupying their plant and Basildon and Enfield are maintaining 24-hour pickets to prevent the administrators KPMG from taking away any equipment. We are determined to maintain our protest until we get what is rightfully ours, from Visteon or their parent company Fords. But we need your help! Please sign this petition, and if you want, you can offer more help by sending a message of support to [email protected] (Frank Jepson, Basildon Unite convenor) and [email protected] (Bob Benham, Enfield Toolroom Steward), or even offer a donation to our campaign.

We believe that we are fighting not only to defend our rights but those of other workers too. If Visteon get away with this, it will be a green light to other big employers as well to harm the pay and conditions of other workers.

Our fight is your fight. We look forward to your support.

Yours in solidarity