Today comrades in Warsaw and elsewhere took part in the International Day of Struggle against Ford-Visteon called for by the CNT in Spain and the IWA. The multinational is outsourcing work, creating a network of companies and doing all sorts of machinations to avoid tax liabilities and their responsibilities towards workers. Using front companies such as Visteon, Ford divides up and sends out work, opening factories, shutting them down, moving money around to hide their wealth and even to cheat the workers. 450 workers in Cadiz face the elimination of their workplaces due to corporate greed. The CNT union section in Visteon is fighting against the closure.We send our solidarity to the comrades in their struggle and we have been informing about the situation. We have translated some articles and also had a film showing, after which there was a discussion about the structure of Ford, the nature of work in the company and the situation of the factory in Cadiz. We also sent our protests to the offices of both Visteon and Ford.
In Warsaw we do not have any representation of Visteon, but there is a Ford office. So we went there. As it is located in an office park where there are no passersby, we gave leaflets to employees and a letter to the management, expressing our concern with the closure of the Visteon Cadiz Electronica plant and our opposition to their company's treatment of the workforce.
We decided to hold a larger picket later in the afternoon at a Ford dealership someplace where more people pass by. Unfortunately, nature sabotaged us a bit; there were strong thunderstorms and even hail, so there were too few people on the streets. Nonetheless cars were driving by, so we stayed with a banner and gave out leaflets to pedestrians and cars stopped at the traffic lights. We will probably go back to Ford or another salon in the next few days when there are more people.
