Visteon pensioners outside parliament last week (Pic: Paul Bailey)
Former Ford-Visteon workers were set to discuss a new pensions deal on Thursday of this week.
Workers will hold mass meetings in South Wales, Northern Ireland and the south east of England.
The workers were made redundant five years ago when Visteon, a car parts firm spun off from Ford, went bust.
Many occupied their factories and forced Ford to pay redundancy packages.
But the bankruptcy drove down the value of their pensions by up to 40 percent. They have been fighting for justice ever since.
Their Unite union said it has reached an agreement with Ford.
Linda Bartle worked for Ford and then Visteon at its plant in Enfield, north London. She told Socialist Worker, “Rumour has it we will only get pensions paid for the years we worked for Ford.
“If that’s the case I think there will be a lot of people opposed to it. I worked for Ford for 15 years and Visteon for nine—so I’d lose nine years from my pension.”
Linda said five years of protests had forced Ford to make an offer. Dennis Varney, who worked for Ford and Visteon for 38 years, agreed.
He said, “Ford has been pushed into a corner by political pressure. Our protests weren’t going away.”
However, the deal won’t apply to everyone—only those who knew to fill in two sets of forms.
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