Visteon Collapse Hammers Home Crisis Engulfing Manufacturing

LONDON - Unite warned that the closure today (Tuesday) of the Visteon plants at
Belfast, Basildon and Enfield once again pointed up the desperate problems
besetting UK manufacturing, and hammered home again the need for strategic
governmental support for the sector. The plants were put into administration
at midday today, with the loss of approximately 600 jobs across three UK
sites.

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said: “The loss today of
another significant tier one supplier in manufacturing underscores the
magnitude of the crisis engulfing our manufacturing sector.

“This is a personal tragedy for each and every one of these workers.
Hundreds of families across in Belfast, Basildon and Enfield are now staring
at a bleak future on the dole, and workers desperately need assurances that
their skills and service will not go to waste or be lost to this country.

“This is yet a further reminder that twenty thousand manufacturing jobs
have disappeared since the economic slump took hold. Our manufacturing sector
is in crisis. It needs serious strategic and financial help, and it needs it
now.”

Roger Maddison, Unite’s national officer for the automotive sector,
attacked the ease with which the workers could be sacked: “We are bitterly
disappointed with today’s news. Within minutes these workers’ working world
collapsed around them. Once again we see how cheap and easy it is to sack UK
workers. One minute they were working but six minutes later they were
jobless, pensionless and looking at the state basic in redundancy pay as
their company was placed into administration. This is no way to treat a loyal
workforce.

“Some of these workers have spent all their working life, in one case
forty years, at this company and helped it through some tough times. Their
reward has been to have their job extinguished at the stroke of an
administrator’s pen. This is no way to treat people who’ve given their life
to Visteon and Ford before them. At the very least these companies owe these
workers fair treatment and a bit more money to help them through the tough
times ahead, and this union has vowed to fight tooth and nail to secure this
for them.”

Source: Unite the Union

For further information contact Pauline Doyle on +44(0)7976-832-861