Visteon Occupations Continue

Edited from from the BBC report......Thursday.

Sacked workers from the car components firm Visteon are continuing to occupy a factory in Belfast.

Protesting staff at the firm also staged a rooftop protest at a plant in Enfield, London while others held a sit-in in Basildon in Essex.

The company's former owner, Ford, had promised redundancy contracts which they now want to see honoured.

Jimmy Kelly of the Unite union said they were to have talks with Ford representatives today in London.

"We are hoping that some progress can be made," he said.

The Joint General Secretary of Unite, Tony Woodley, will lead the talks with a senior representative of Ford Europe.

The Visteon workers want their guarantees on pay and conditions, when the company was established out of Ford nine years ago, to be honoured.

Visteon had a total workforce of 610 in the United Kingdom. Five hundred and sixty five of them were sacked on Tuesday.

Robert Fitch, the shop steward for the Unite union at the Basildon plant, said staff were facing financial hardship. "They've basically said the business is no longer here, you're not getting anything. You have to write to the government and the administrators to try and get some help, but next week I won't be getting a pay packet and I've got all my bills to pay."