Engineering news
Pressure is growing on Ford Motor Company to acknowledge the plight of the Visteon pensioners as legal action against the company looms.
It has emerged that Stephen Metcalfe, Conservative MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, who has spearheaded interest among parliamentarians in the case, has written to Ford chief executive Alan Mulally this week to ask that the automotive giant reconsiders its treatment of the former Visteon employees, whose pensions have been slashed by up to 60%.
The British arm of Visteon, an automotive supplier that was spun out of Ford in 2000, collapsed four years ago with the closure of factories in Belfast, Swansea, Basildon and Enfield. Workers at these plants have since seen their pensions decimated. They claim that their terms and conditions of employment including pension provision were guaranteed by Ford at the time of Visteon's creation. Ford denies this.
In his letter, Metcalfe invited Mulally and Ford to meet with MPs and representatives of the Visteon pensioners. He said: “Our constituents submit that Ford did not take enough care of its employees when they were transferred from Ford to Visteon UK at the time of spin-off in 2000. In particular, they feel their transferred pensions were mis-sold to them and that assurances which were given at the time by Ford turned out to be meaningless.”
Protestors were due to meet with MPs at Westminster this week. The dispute seems to have attracted an unusually high level of support among MPs, who are set to carry out a select committee enquiry in either April or May. Members of the Visteon Pension Action Group (VPAG) are hopeful their case will be heard in court this year but it has dragged on and the fear is that some pensioners will not live to see their pensions restored. Dennis Varney of VPAG told PE: “Ford will only come to the table if the pressure gets big enough and this is our aim. US media have picked up on the story and therefore we need to build upon this until Ford comes to its senses.”
The workers believe that Visteon UK was “set up to fail” - a situation that new Visteon Corporation chief executive Tim Leuliette has allegedly described as “comical”, according to Metcalfe's letter. Visteon Corp is the former parent company of Visteon UK. Metcalfe said: “We submit that someone somewhere within Ford decided that, in line with other motor manufacturers, it would be in the best interests of the wider business to dispose of its parts manufacturing arm, on the basis that it was too expensive, too labour intensive, and that without internal production, cheaper external production sources could be found.
“We also submit that Ford and its main board directors knew that Visteon UK was going to lose huge amounts of money, that its costs were going to outstrip its income and that, at best, whatever its future was, it was not going to be the same as it was in the past.”
Ford had an obligation to make up the shortfall in pensions, Metcalfe argued. The fund was found to be underfunded to the tune of £350 million when Visteon UK collapsed.
Ford declined to comment.