Essex
Basildon Visteon workers protest outside former boss' home
Axed employees protested outside the £600,000 Maldon home of their former boss – demanding the redundancy and pension packages they were promised.
A total of 170 former workers at Visteon (UK) in Basildon face the dole queue and reduced pensions They waved banners outside the home of Stephen Gawne, 53, who is still a director of Visteon (UK) despite it going into administration.
He is now based at sister company Visteon Engineering Services in Endeavour Drive, Basildon. The firm will not confirm his role there.
Basildon Visteon workers demonstrate against job cuts
Up to 100 sacked workers from Visteon in Basildon, Essex, protested outside the Visteon Customer and Technology Centre (VCTC) on 2 April.
In an impressive show of solidarity, a handful of the office staff at VCTC walked out to join the sacked workers.
A Securicor driver also refused to cross past the demonstration to make a delivery, turned around and left to cheers. A group of workers from other unions across Essex was also warmly received when it joined the protest to offer support.
Dale Farm traveller reprieve
Hopes have been raised that Dale Farm, the largest traveller site in the UK, will gain a reprieve from eviction in the New Year.
Two appeals in the area at nearby sites have led to one yard on Cranfield Road given a five-year allowance for residential use, and three other sites, on Gypsy Hill, have won four years each.
’Ethnic cleansing’ in Essex
Travellers in Essex, who claim they are living in fear of an apartheid-style dawn eviction, say they will defend their homes using non-violent resistance and human shields.
Dale Farm, near Basildon, is the largest travellers' community in Britain, the home of approximately 600 residents living in 86 homes. Virtually a village, with chalets, mobile-homes and brick-walled gardens, Dale Farm's residents have erected barbed-wire, scaffolding and multiple steel gates because they say they expect to wake up any day now to find themselves under siege.
Sex workers: GMB wins first ever unfair dismissal case
An employment tribunal has just found that GMB member Mrs Irene Everitt, who worked on live adult chat lines, was unfairly dismissed by her employer Datapro Services Limited.
Mrs Everitt was dismissed in March 2005 having been accused of gross industrial misconduct. She worked for the company in Grays in Essex from 1997 to 2005.
