Engineering news
Former workers of collapsed automotive supplier Visteon are preparing to take legal action against Ford as the row over cuts to their pensions escalated.
Workers and their union representatives met with senior managers from Ford Motor Company in New York on Friday, including Lewis Booth, chief financial officer of Ford Worldwide, John Fleming, chairman of Ford Europe, and Nick Caton, vice president of human resources, Ford Europe, but the talks failed to resolve the dispute. Former Visteon workers are facing cuts to their pensions of up to 60% following the collapse of the company’s UK subsidiary, and the loss of 600 jobs, in April last year.
Visteon was spun out of Ford in 2000. The workers have always maintained that their pensions and terms and conditions of employment were guaranteed by Ford at the time of Visteon’s creation. Ford strongly denies this.
Today former Visteon staff said the automotive giant had been “sympathetic” to their plight at the New York meeting, but added that Ford had said “obligations to its former employees were fully discharged”.
“Ford believes there is no basis for resuming liability for benefits transferred to Visteon,” the workers said.
Representatives from trade union Unite told Ford at the meeting that if it would not take “moral responsibility” for the Visteon pension fund, it would pursue legal action against the company.
Simon Harding, a former worker at Visteon’s Engineering Centre in Basildon, and a member of the Visteon Pension Action Group, had previously been advised there was an “extremely strong case” for legal action against Ford. It is understood Unite will finalise its legal position over the next two weeks.
Harding said today: “We are confident that the legal phase of our challenge will commence shortly.”
More than 60 MPs have now backed a motion in Parliament tabled by Siân James, Labour MP for Swansea East, expressing “great concern” that Visteon staff were not receiving the pensions allegedly promised by Ford.