Workers to picket car showrooms in jobs row

Ford showrooms in Belfast are set to be picketed today in an escalation of the Visteon dispute.

The planned action comes despite union efforts to prevent the move after hopes of progress in redundancy negotiations.

Around 210 workers were laid off in the North 10 days ago after a decision to close the three loss-making Visteon UK car component plants. Protesters want their contracts honoured with former owner Ford.

A spokesman for the disgruntled former staff last night said: “We expect around 20 people to take part in pickets in the morning. It is a measure of how strongly we feel. We plan to picket two or three showrooms.”

Ford sold the car components part of its business in 2000. It had offered former employees the chance to return to the fold but denied having any remaining responsibilities to the Visteon workers.

Employees in west Belfast have staged a sit-in since they were dismissed. Visteon centres in Basildon, Essex, and Enfield, north London, have also been closed and workers there are demonstrating.

Unite union national leaders have been to New York for talks with Visteon management and were due to brief colleagues in Belfast this week after expressing optimism about future talks.

A rally was held earlier this week in Belfast with several hundred listening to Irish union leaders.

Manufacturing in the North has suffered its bleakest period for some time with an additional 975 voluntary redundancies announced at Bombardier aerospace factory in east Belfast last week.

Visteon has been losing millions of pounds in the UK, with its US headquarters forced to subsidise it amid a global downturn in demand for new cars.