Visteon offers extra redundancy payments

Car parts firm Visteon today offered extra payments to former workers in a bid to resolve a series of protests over redundancies.

The US firm has faced demonstrations and sit-ins over the past few weeks at sites in Belfast, Basildon, Essex, and Enfield, north London after announcing 560 job cuts.

The company announced it had presented leaders of Unite with a solution to address redundancy pay concerns of former employees of Visteon UK Ltd, which was placed into administration on March 31 after years of significant losses.

The Visteon Corporation said its offer involved providing additional payments to the former employees so that most would receive an immediate cash payment equivalent to 16 weeks of their previous pay.

Additional payments would be made later, increasing the total severance benefits to the approximate amounts former workers would have received under their most recent contract, said the firm.

Visteon was set up in 2000 as a Ford spin-off and took over factories formerly owned by the car giant.

Workers have been campaigning for factories to be reopened or for better redundancy terms.

Unite officials travelled to the United States last week to meet company bosses and further talks were held in London yesterday.