Ex-Visteon staff head to Wales for protest (From Basildon Recorder)

Ex-Visteon staff head to Wales for protest

4:00pm Thursday 21st January 2010

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COACHES full of ex-Visteon workers travelled from south Essex to Wales for a protest over lost pensions.

About 80 people left in two coaches to Cardiff, where they joined former Visteon workers from across the UK for a rally outside the Welsh Assembly today.

Visteon UK went into administration in April last year, leaving more than 600 people out of work when it closed its car parts factory in Christopher Martin Road, Basildon, as well as factories in Enfield and Belfast.

Another former Visteon UK factory, in Swansea, was sold-off to Canadian car-parts company Linamar in 2008.

The Government-run Pension Protection Fund is set to take over Visteon UK’s retirement scheme, but this could mean up to a 50 per cent drop in the former car workers’ monthly pension payments.

The protest is part of former workers’ campaign to convince Ford, which owned Visteon UK until 2000, to rescue the pension scheme.

A critical meeting will also take place tomorrow in New York, between Ford and the Unite union, which represents the former workers.

Visteon UK pensioner Paul Bailey, 60, of Wincoat Drive, Benfleet, said: “These are encouraging times, because our campaign is really building up momentum. We won’t rest until Ford does the decent thing.”

The factories in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast belonged to Ford until they were transferred to Visteon UK ten years ago.

Many of the former workers paid into the Ford pension scheme for over 20 years, before their retirement fund was transferred to Visteon UK.

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