May Day posted by Richard Seymour

The workers used to be employed by Ford until 2000 and were sacked at the end of last month. Ford tried to avoid its responsibilities, claiming that it owed the workers nothing.

But workers’ action has forced Ford to offer hundreds of thousands of pounds in redundancy packages. Many workers will get £40,000 or more. It is one of the biggest payouts that Ford has ever offered.

Unite union reps are recommending that workers accept the offer. They are due to vote on it later today.

Levent Adnan worked at the Enfield site for over 17 years. “This is a massive result for us,” he told Socialist Worker. “We’ve managed to beat a massive corporation. Ford and Visteon have had their fingers burnt.

“The threat of taking action to Ford was the turning point. This offer sets a new benchmark too – if Ford try to sack workers elsewhere they won’t be able to just do it and give people nothing.

“People can see now that if you put up a strong enough fight you can win. This is a victory for workers and it’s about time we won something.”

Labels: factory occupation, ford, militancy, recession, strike, visteon workers

Behind the Visteon closures posted by Richard Seymour

Ford set up Visteon in 1997 and outsourced it in 2000. An internal Visteon UK document in the possession of Socialist Worker reveals the method underlying the outsourcing process.

The document, which was presented to bosses in 2005, is couched in management jargon with obscure formulas for calculating risk and costs.

It shows how outsourcing was meant to lower costs.

It starts by saying the benefits of outsourcing are “increased productivity” and “cost reductions”, though it notes that outsourcing doesn’t “improve quality” of products.

The document uses the example of the outsourcing of part of Visteon to India. In 2002 this part had a resource per hour cost of $80 in the UK and $25 in India.

In 2004 it had a resource per hour of $75 in the UK and $20 in India. In other words, outsourcing drives down wages in both countries.

The document argues that outsourcing requires directors to have “toughness” in increased proportion to the number of outsourced companies.

It says that there are three options for contractual agreements: “Negotiate” which is described as “expensive and time consuming”, “Ignore”, or “Remove liability insertion points”.

Labels: capitalism, ford, militancy, outsourcing, visteon workers, working class

Help Visteon workers shut down plant posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: factory occupation, militancy, recession, resistance, strikes, visteon workers

Visteon workers fight on, end occupation posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: capitalism, militancy, occupation, recession, resistance, sit-in strike, socialism, visteon workers