Ford Factory Occupation

The Visteon automobile factory (owned by Ford) in has been occupied this morning by workers who were sacked yesterday.

Yesterday workers at the 3 factories owned by Ford Cars subsiduary Visteon< in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast were called into the offices by management at 2pm and laid-off with immediate effect. They were not even given time to collect their belongings or provided with any redundancy pay (other than an initial week's wages that had been held back from them in the first place.

Visteon is a tax dodge that was set up by Ford in 2000. It has been variously used as a way by Ford for not providing normal legal provisions for workers. Recently, it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after shares dropped from 7c to 2c.

Of the 200 workers who were employed at the Enfield factory, currently about 100 are occupying the building in defiance of the half-dozen security guards who were meant to be "protecting" the site. The factory is otherwise completely deserted and many of the protestors are now on the roof to announce to the world what is going on. They have supplies and do not intend to give the factory back until their demands are met by the administrators (KPMG). The police have been called but are not yet showing any interest. The workers demands are:

• Full back pay
• Full legal notice in compliance with UK law
• The same conditions of redundancy that Ford workers receive

More reports (including photos) later!