Ford/Visteon Ex-workers March For Pension Justice

In general in the UK as elsewhere,  laws are made to protect the interests of the rich and powerful who make the laws, although some have obvious benefits to the rest of society. But in areas around trade unions and pensions, the dice are rather clearly loaded against the workers, as we have seen in several court decisions lately (and if you haven’t read Brendan Montague‘s piece on the judge involved in the RMT decision which, while carefully not alleging any irregularity,  demonstrates “the closeness of the British judicial system to major corporate interests” you may like to and ponder why our media keep remarkably quiet about such things – and why they chose to represent the failure to meet some technical requirements of the act which had no effect on the actual voting as “ballot rigging” when the ballot followed normal procedures under independent scrutiny.)

© 2010, Peter Marshall
Outside the Unite office at the start of the march

Our pensions laws appear to enable companies to play fast and loose with monies paid by the employees and the employers contributions paid on their behalf. So while Unite may pursue Ford and Visteon over what can only be described in terms like fraud, injustice and theft, their chances of getting justice in court may not be too high. Men and women who had worked for thirty or forty years for Ford/Visteon now find that they have pensions a half or two thirds those that their conditions of employment had promised. It is truly scandalous.

© 2010, Peter Marshall
At the gates of Downing St

This is one of too many areas where shame attaches to our Labour government for failing to take action over its 13 years in office, years which saw an unprecedented number of new laws but unfortunately few which addressed the real issues of justice, fairness and equality.

You can read more about the pensions scandal and see my pictures from the London march and rally on 31 March in My London Diary.  (Some were posted immediately following the event on Indymedia and Demotix.)

© 2009 Peter Marshall.
Students show solidarity with workers at Visteon Enfield

Last year I also covered the closure of the Visteon Enfield plant (here and here) and a  May Day demonstration by Visteon workers outside the offices of the company administrator, KPMG who had made them (around 610 people working at Belfast, Enfield and Basildon) redundant. The workers and the support of their unions forced Ford and Visteon to agree to a proper severance package rather than the statutory redundancy payments KPMG had offered.

© 2009 Peter Marshall
Visteon, Enfield “An Enterprise of Ford Motor Company, Limited”

Although Visteon UK was declared insolvent in 2009, Visteon Corp remains one of the largest world suppliers of car parts, with total assets last year of over 4.5 billion US dollars. This is still small compared to Ford, whose assets are over $220 billion.

I was surprised that so few photographers covered this march which raises significant issues, and I was pleased to be there and to lend my support. But in some ways it is easier to work when there are a few more photographers around and you stand out rather less, and we do all pick up ideas from others when covering events. At times I did feel a little on my own.

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