Ford facing legal action over pensions

Motor giant Ford was warned today it faced legal action over the pension rights of thousands of workers who transferred to a car parts firm which then went into administration.

Unite accused Ford of providing "misleading" advice to the employees who switched to Visteon in 2000, telling them that their accrued pension rights would be protected.

Up to 4,000 workers were told they could lose as much as half of their pension entitlements when Visteon went into administration last year.

The former factory workers, who used to be based in Belfast, Basildon in Essex, and Enfield in north London, have been campaigning for the past year to force Ford, which set up Visteon in the 1990s, to take back responsibility for their pensions, and occupied some of the plants after Visteon went into administration.

Unite's national officer, Roger Maddison, said: "Hundreds of workers, many of them close to retirement, were sacked at a minute's notice and lost their pensions. We believe Ford misled many of these workers leading them to believe their pensions were safe with Visteon.

"Ford failed to clearly set out the risks associated with transferring the assets staff had built up with Ford - now many of these workers face vastly reduced pensions.

"The workers' fight for justice won the moral argument and succeeded in getting vastly improved redundancy terms. Now the fight for pensions justice begins."

Unite has written to Ford saying it will press ahead with legal action if the dispute is not resolved, it was announced today.

Ford said it met or exceeded its obligations when Visteon became fully independent, covering the transfer of employees to Visteon UK and their pensions into the Visteon fund.

"The situation for former Visteon UK employees is unfortunate but the responsibility for administering and funding their terms and conditions was Visteon's, including managing its pension fund," Ford said in a statement.

"Ford's obligations to its former employees were fully discharged and Ford believes there is no basis for resuming liability for benefits transferred to Visteon.

"Since 2000 Visteon has operated as an independent company supplying parts to Ford. During this period, Ford has taken a number of actions to support Visteon and to assist Visteon in its efforts to achieve long term viability. These included enabling 560 Visteon employees to return to Ford and providing Visteon with ongoing and new Ford business.

"Despite this Ford assistance, sustained losses meant that Visteon Corporation took the decision to put Visteon UK into administration in 2009. The impact of this for former employees and retirees is very regrettable. However, the contractual responsibility is with the trustees of Visteon UK's pension fund and the administrator.

"Ford has stated that it will not provide further assistance to affected parties. This position was confirmed at a meeting on January 22 between senior Ford executives, representatives of the Unite union and ex-Visteon employees.

"Ford is currently striving for its own continued viability, which has required difficult decisions, including bringing production in line with reduced demand, releasing agency and temporary production workers and a 2009 voluntary separation programme for approximately 800 employees."