Workers at Visteon,
following a four-week battle, have gained a victory. After the
occupation of the Visteon plants and 24 hour picketing when the
company announced its liquidation, Ford/Visteon bosses were finally
forced to concede to the workers’ demands. Workers in Enfield and
Basildon have already voted in favour of the deal, while those at
Belfast will be voting soon. Rob Sewell interviewed Rob Fitch, shop
steward at the Visteon plant in Basildon, who was also one of the
national negotiators that secured the new deal.

Supporters of Socialist Appeal from
Romford paid a solidarity visit to the pickets outside the Visteon
plant at Basildon on Sunday. Although the workers have voted to
support the deal conceded by the Visteon bosses (see report posted
above this one) they are staying on the line until they are 100%
certain that the deal will go through

Sacked Visteon workers are currently in the fifth week of a struggle to obtain what is rightfully theirs having been shown the door by the company after many years of service for Fords.

I spoke to Mick Juric on the picket line at the Enfield plant. He’d put in 20 years service and had been told that he was ‘too important’ to the company to be given a voluntary redundancy package earlier this year. The company told him that they looked forward to working with him in the future. A few weeks later he was summarily dismissed with no payout from the company for the years of service.

Rob Williams, a well-known union activist
and Unite union convenor at the Linamar car
parts site in Swansea,
was called into the management office last Tuesday and without warning given
the sack. Why? Officially because of a ‘breakdown in trust and confidence’ (what
ever that means!) but in reality because of the role of the union in
challenging the bosses attempts to run the factory down.

Landing a job in British Television would be considered by most to be a
real prize. The industry has long since been associated with decent
wages, prestige, and glamour. It’s no surprise then that thousands of
young people compete to get into the industry each year. But the
industry is hiding a dirty secret. Many of these young applicants, who
have often gone to great effort and expense to gain media degrees, are
given their first job in the industry paying them… wait for it… £0.00.
That’s right. Nothing!
Over the past decade, as budgets have shrunk in an ever more
competitive market, privately owned production companies, collectively
known as the independent sector, have been cheating applicants into
accepting unpaid ‘work experience’ positions. Lured by the shallow
promise of ‘promotion’ later down the line, ‘work experiencers’ are
often held for many months before being offered paid work. In many
cases companies never offer them pay at all.

After the trauma of losing their livelihood and pensions
and a difficult seven nights of occupation on the cold floors of the factory, Visteon Enfield car parts workers were advised by their trade union leaders (Unite) to leave
the premises and continue the struggle outside the gates.

Now, funds are running low and the workers are getting tired. Now is
the time for the financial, physical and political support from the
broader community in order to make sure these workers win their just
demands.

Jack Jones, former General Secretary of the TGWU (now part
of Unite) from 1969 to 1978 has died at the age of 96. Although he moved away
from the Left towards the end of his union career he was without a doubt one of
the best-known and most militant trade union leader of his day.