Unite convenor Kevin Nolan with Robert Benham and his 35 year service award as factory occupation is ended by court order
Workers occupying the Visteon factory in Enfield came out in compliance with the court order at mid-day on Thursday 9 April 2009. They were embraced by Unite convener, Kevin Nolan and others and cheered by a crowd of several hundred who had come to give support. Robert Benham emerged holding his 35-year long service award, received last September - for most of which time he was employed directly by The Ford Motor Company before they devolved their activities at Enfield to Visteon which was set up as a part of Ford. After all the workers had come out, Nolan was carried along the street on the shoulders of two men. In 2000, the Ford Motor Company separated off its supply arm as Visteon - one of the signs on the plant still reads "An Enterprise of Ford Motor Company Limited." Workers were given contracts mirroring those they had had from Ford and were reassured that they would receive the same pensions and redundancy arrangements they had enjoyed previously. But at Visteon's three UK plants - Belfast, Basildon and Enfield - the company reneged on these promises Workers there, some of whom had been working for Ford for 30 or more years, were told on 31 March 2009 that they were out of a job. The meeting lasted just over 5 minutes and they were given an hour to take any personal possessions and leave work immediately - without pay. The workers continued their struggle with a picket of the factory to prevent valuable equipment being removed. Supported by their Union, Unite, they achieved some of their demands after several weeks of occupation and discussion
Size: 5040px × 3354px
Location: Visteon, Ponders End, Enfield, London, England, UK
Photo credit: © Peter Marshall / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: award, benham, car, closure, demonstration, enfield, factory, ford, jobs, kevin, lock-, long, nolan, occupation, parts, plant, ponders, protest, recession, redundancy, roert, sacked, sackings, service, solidarity, support, trade, union, unite, visteon, workers
