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Car Parts Firm ( Land Rover, BMW, Peugeot ) - 25 Jobs Saved !

Car Parts Supplier Stadco, in Llanfyllin, Powys, Mid Wales, has saved the jobs of about a quarter of the 106 workers who were facing redundancy.  Last December the car parts supplier blamed the recession for making 106 of its 153 workers redundant.  But the company has found additional work which will mean a cut of 25 in the redundancy total.

The company is part of the Acertec car parts firm which supplies Land Rover, BMW and Peugeot.

Stadco, also has car parts plants in Castle Bromwich in Birmingham, Coventry, Shrewsbury and Saarlouis, Germany.

A company spokesman said the reduction in the number of redundancies was an indication of the value the company placed upon the Llanfyllin car parts plant.  But he said they could not make any promises about the company's long-term commitment to the factory near Welshpool.

Local councillor Peter Lewis said he was delighted by the news - "This means that rather than two-thirds of the workforce being cut it is now down to about half.".

Llanfyllin is a small market town about 15 miles (24km) north of Welshpool. It has a population of 1,400 people.

Report Compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.

Car Scrappage Scheme - Unfortunate Impact ?

The car scrap scheme that has been mooted for months by government ministers today came into effect in the Budget.  A similar scheme was introduced earlier this year in Germany, and resulted in a 40% increase in car sales, compared to a 30% downturn in the UK.  Had ministers not acted, the scrappage scheme might have arrived in the UK through the back door anyway, with Citroen already offering £2000 back for cars that qualified for their scrappage scheme,  However, key car industry commentators are worried about the potential impact of the car scrap scheme.

For RAC Foundation Director Professor Stephen Glaister, the scheme could have some good, and some bad effects, speaking to BBC News he said - "If the scheme leads to a reduction in the average age of the national car fleet then this has to be good for road safety as more modern cars will have a wider range of safety features built in.".  However, on the negative side he said : "Currently the vast majority of cars are still on the road at 10 years old.  Indeed at 14 years old, half are still on the road.  The car scrappage scheme announced today risks consigning a lot of perfectly good, and relatively clean, vehicles to the dustbin.".  The environmental impact of this scheme may create future problems that we are as yet unaware of - what will happen to the cars that are sent to the scrap yards ?

BVRLA chief executive John Lewis also held concerns for the used car industry in the UK : "Unfortunately, our ministers have chosen to follow the German model, which has been widely criticised for decimating the country's used car industry." - Mr Lewis predicts that companies will hold onto cars for longer, rather than selling them cheaply.  Spare car parts suppliers and garages could also suffer from a fall in demand resulting from the mass-removal of old cars from the market, as the population of cars in the country becomes younger.

This report compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists Since 1978.

Car Parts (Ford) Workers reject "Derisory" Visteon Offer

Former car parts workers at the Visteon plants in Belfast, Basildon and Enfield have rejected a "derisory" offer of cash payments from their former employer, according to BBC News Northern Ireland.  The Ford car parts maker Visteon Corporation has said most employees would receive a cash payment equivalent to 16 weeks pay.

A Unite union spokesman said that it added "insult to injury.".  A Visteon spokesman said that as well as the immediate cash payment - "Over time additional payments would be made increasing their total severance package to the approximate amounts they would have received under their most recent contract."

The protesting car parts workers in Belfast and Enfield have staged factory sit-ins to highlight their situation.  The Unite union spokesman said that the sit-ins had forced the company to the negotiating table as it wanted to sell the stock that was sitting in the factories.

"It may well be that our fight has to move on to Ford, but the sit-in is important at the moment," Unite spokesman Roger Madison said.  However a Ford spokesman said that the company has no responsibility for former Visteon workers - "Since 2000, Visteon has been an independent company supplying parts to Ford. Ford has no contractual or other responsibility towards the Visteon UK workforce.  The decision made regarding the plants in Belfast, Basildon and Enfield was made by Visteon's management and not by Ford Motor Company.  Ford has acted responsibly and met, or exceeded, its commitments under the Visteon agreement of 2000."

In the mean time, some former car part plant workers have staged peaceful protests outside the homes of Visteon managers in Lisburn and Downpatrick.  Pickets were held on Monday and again on Wednesday.  Nearly 600 jobs were lost at the three car part plants - 210 in Belfast - with staff being given less than an hour's notice.

The workers said that they were given pay and conditions guarantees when the company was split from Ford nine years ago, and will only leave when they are offered an adequate deal.  Former car parts plant workers in Northern Ireland also picketed Ford showrooms over the Easter weekend as well as staging a sit-in at the Visteon plant in Finaghy.

This report compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.

Car Parts Workers Kidnap Boss In France

Car Parts workers in France have taken drastic action to try to get management to listen to their demands.  A "bossnapping" incident in which workers angry about factory restructuring plans in a car parts plant near Paris held three managers ended late on Thursday, according to Yahoo News UK.

The managers of the French car parts plant Faurecia were released after several hours of detainment, according to a union source.  The kidnapping of managers in France is becoming an alarming trend.  A number of managers in France have been held hostage overnight by workers in recent weeks over planned job cuts. In each case, they have been released unharmed, often after a promise to restart negotiations.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to put an end to bossnapping, saying workers angry over layoffs must obey the law and not kidnap executives.  "What is this business of sequestering people? We have the rule of law, and I will not let matters go on like that," said Sarkozy in a speech.

"We can understand that people are angry, but this anger will subside with answers and results, not by aggravating matters with actions that are contrary to the law," he said.

It seems that Sarkozy may be out of step with a fair amount of French public opinion though - recent polls show that up to half of French people believe that taking executives captive to get better redundancy terms is a justified action.

This report was compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.

Ford, VW Car Parts Company Sales Slump

Car Parts company ElringKlinger AG, based in Germany, who make car parts for Ford and Volkswagen, have forecast the first decline in sales in at least a decade as orders slump, according to Bloombergs news wire service.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Chief Executive Officer Stefan Wolf said at a press conference in Stuttgart today. New orders for car parts in the first quarter plummeted about 30 percent from a year earlier, he said.

The Ford and VW supplier expect revenue to be 580 million euros ($764 million) to 600 million euros this year if the North American and European car markets shrink by at least another 20 percent as they expect.  Sales may fall to as low as 500 million euros if car production does not improve. Revenue totaled 657.8 million euros in 2008.

European car sales fell more than 25 percent in January, while U.S. sales fell 37 percent. With the first recession in the euro’s 10-year history deepening, carmakers from Renault SA to Volkswagen AG are cutting jobs and scaling back production. At best, ElringKlinger expects 2009 operating profit and sales to match last year’s level, it said today.

Car Parts maker on the brink

Car-parts maker TI Automotive has breached its banking covenants and has begun talks with its lenders on a comprehensive restructuring of its finances.

Car parts manufacturer TI, based in Oxford, has a 90-year pedigree. It employs 16,000 in 27 countries – more than 1,000 in Britain – and claims that its car parts are found in half the world’s cars. TI makes a range of car parts, but specialises in fuel tanks, pipes and brake lines.

According to the Times Online - TI Automotive is owned by two American investment firms, and has been hammered by the international slump in car sales. UK car production is down nearly 60%, with similar falls in America and other large markets.

Despite a refinancing 18 months ago, which meant it would not have to repay any principal on its loans until 2012, the company is understood to have breached covenants on its loans at the end of last year.

It is thought that TI will now undertake a £455m restructuring of its debts. Advisers believe TI may need up to £200m of new cash.  During the 2007 calendar year, TI made a loss of £50m on sales of £1.4 billion.

Report compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.

Ford Car Parts Workers Stage Sit In

Former car parts firm workers have occupied a factory in Enfield, north London, the Unite union says.

Visteon, a spin-off of the Ford Motor Company, was placed into administration on Tuesday. 

Workers are also protesting at a Visteon car parts plant in Essex, while 80 workers are still taking part in a sit-in at a factory in Belfast which began on Tuesday.  The workers are angry about more than 500 job losses and what they see as derisory redundancy packages.

The subsidiary has racked up losses of £669m since 2000.  As a result, Visteon stopped funding the operation and appointed KPMG as administrators, who immediately shut down production at the three factories and announced 565 redundancies among car parts staff.  According to KPMG, production has been diverted to other Visteon factories outside the UK. 

The workers are protesting at what they see as rough treatment.  Depending on length of service, they are only entitled to statutory redundancy. This is capped at £350 a week, and runs for a maximum of 30 weeks, said KPMG.  But only workers who have been employed by Visteon for two years or more will qualify for redundancy.

The protestors claim that Ford - the company's former owner and main customer, had promised much more generous redundancy contracts which they now want to see honoured.  There are also question marks over the workers' pensions.  They might eventually be placed into the government's Pension Protection Fund. However, as yet the fund has "not even been informed officially of any insolvency", a PPF spokesman said. "We're not involved at all at the moment," he said.

Visteon in the US is itself struggling to survive.  It has been hit hard by a drop in orders as carmakers cut back production during the economic downturn.

Report compiled by Find a Part - Car Parts Search Specialists since 1978.