Ford gave Visteon wokers "lifetime guarantee"

Reports in the media this week show that Ford told Visteon staff they would have “lifetime protection” of their pay and conditions if they agreed to leave the Ford and join Visteon.

Documents now circulating in the UK media show that the company told staff they would not lose out. To the question, “How long are our pay and conditions guaranteed?”, the company answered: “For the duration of your employment with Visteon UK, your terms and conditions . . . will mirror Ford conditions. This means lifetime protection while an employee of Visteon UK of all your contractual conditions of employment.”

However, Ford have said it was under no “legal or moral” obligation to help, saying it had hired 560 Visteon staff back since the split. KPMG, appointed administrator last Tuesday, said Ford “assured” it this was the case.

Other media reports say that internal documents suggest Visteon UK’s management were preparing for the closure of the Belfast plant as early as January 2007. A report entitled Project Protea discusses the development of “duplicate sources for all the Belfast product lines by the end of 2007”. Managers involved aimed to “minimise information leaks by creating isolated project teams”.

Workers in the Visteon sites are still occupying the factories with a demonstration called for April 9th at the Enfield site.