car industry
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in manufacturing, research and development, mining and materials around the world.
Lifting the lid on Visteon, KPMG and the fat cats behind the cuts
Simon Basketter examines the companies behind the sacking of hundreds of UK car plant workers with no notice or redundancy pay.
The company that summarily sacked 600 workers leading to occupations in Belfast, Basildon and Enfield is Visteon UK. It a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based Visteon Corporation.
The administrators say that Visteon UK owes more than £400 million to Visteon Corp. In other words, the company owes money to itself.
Video interviews with Visteon occupiers in Enfield
Interviews conducted by Jesse Oldershaw with sacked Visteon workers occupying their Enfield plant 4 April 2009.
Appeal for support for the Visteon occupation video
Appeal for support delivered by Kevin Nolan, Unite convenor of the Enfield site.
Audio interview with Visteon occupier
Audio interview with Unite convenor at the occupied Visteon plant in Belfast, John McGuire.
Download the audio interview here: http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/apr2009/workers_occupation.mp3
Car factory occupations spread across the UK
Sacked workers from the car parts firm Visteon have been occupying three factories across the UK since Wednesday.
The action began with an overnight sit-in at the Visteon plant in Belfast and employees are continuing their protest at the factory. More than 100 workers have staged a sit-in, the Unite trade union has said. Earlier, it was announced that 565 staff would go at Visteon car components plants across the UK.
Canadian auto-workers occupy factory
A group of disgruntled workers at a recently closed auto parts supply company in Windsor, Ontario have taken over the plant.
In the latest twist in a saga that has been brewing since two auto plants in the area shut down early last week, about a dozen workers occupied the Aradco plant Tuesday night. They have welded the doors shut from the inside and say they will not leave until they get what they are owed.
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the coming of revolution - Eric Perkins
Contemporary article on the League of Revolutionary Black Workers from Radical America which, though uncritical of their nationalistic sentiments, contains a lot of interesting information.
(Radical America Vol 5, #2 1971)
DRUM: vanguard of the black revolution
A short history of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, detailing their beginnings as well as their opposition to the United Auto Workers union.
(from an article by Luke Tripp which appeared in The South End, the student newspaper at Wayne state University, January 23, 1969)
DRUM is an organization of oppressed and exploited black workers.
The butcher shop: Hamtramck Hospital
Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement's attack on the racist practices of the hospital at the Hamtramck Chrysler factory.
(from DRUM Newsletter Number 21)
The carrot and the stick: December 11, 1968
DRUM's attack on the spectacle of the Chrysler Corporation's "milestone agreement" to "pour $1,000,000 into colored-owned banks in three US cities".
(from DRUM Newsletter Number 24)
