Within minutes, it was clear that the only negotiations would be over redundancy terms. Linamar took over the plant from Visteon in July 2008. Visteon was the company created by Ford in 2000 from its component plants. The other three Visteon plants, located in Basildon, Enfield and Belfast, went into administration last year.
Despite most of the Swansea workers being on terms and conditions and pensions ‘mirrored’ to that of Ford, Linamar assured the workforce that they had secured new engine work from Ford, most of which would be supplied to their engine plant in Bridgend.
This would replace their existing work on power take off transmission units (PTUs).
However, as Rob Williams convenor of the Unite union in the plant, said: “They have kept their word on all the bad news, like the PTUs, but have reneged on all their positive promises like the new work and our contracts. Many of us would have lost £600 per month!”
Linamar workers believe that it is now clear that Linamar was only interested in securing the work from Ford, work that will now go to the German plant.
Ford has received financial assistance from government agencies. Ford should be forced to insist that Linamar makes the engine work in Swansea. The union in the Swansea plant will be meeting the workforce over the next few days, ahead of a mass meeting on Monday evening, to discuss fighting the closure.
A battle that mass strike action can win
Lift the siege immediately!
Thousands of secondary school students awaited A-level and GCSE results anxiously last month. Again it was another record-breaking year for Northern Ireland students who again improved on the previous years results. But even pupils who have achieved top grades will be forced to compete for the miniscule amount of university places on offer. This, and the fact that the education budget faces cuts of 25% this year, leaves tens of thousands of young people in the North without any access to education or a decent job.