Land Rover workers at the Ford-owned company’s English sites in Solihull, near Birmingham and Gaydon are again staging a 24-hour strike over pay and proposed changes to their working patterns.
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Lunchtime TV reports on Monday showed a group of workers – corralled behind two-metre high, police-supervised barriers – noisily heckling staff reporting for work at one of the company’s facilities.
A union representative told a TV reporter that the union was willing to negotiate if Ford brought an offer to the table but the company is reportedly standing firm and refusing to discuss pay or work patterns (essentially, the workers want parity with Jaguar staff rather than the 6.5% raise over two years on offer) but will discuss other issues.
The TV report said Land Rover’s union is due to meet the management for a regular quarterly meeting on Tuesday.
About 8,000 staff last downed tools on Monday 26 January, for the first time since 1988, as Land Rover warned action could put the future of the Solihull plant at risk as it would be “increasingly difficult” to justify new investment. The company has already relocated the next generation Freelander to another UK plant from 2005.
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By GlobalDataAs the strike action began two weeks ago, unions warned that Land Rover production would be badly hit by a 24-hour walkout as the Solihull factory normally produces 1,000 vehicles a day, 70% of which are exported.
Land Rover reportedly said at the time that its offer of a 6.5% pay increase over two years was “significantly” above the rate of inflation and industry settlements in the UK.
But the Transport and General Workers’ Union responded that its Land Rover members believed the pay offer should be increased to reflect the contribution they have made to the company’s profits.
The strike escalates the workers’ industrial action, including a recent overtime ban in recent weeks and the withdrawal from a flexible working agreement earlier in January.
