Trade unions representing workers at Ford in Dagenham meet the company's President today to discuss racism at the plant.
Allegations of racist bullying have prompted two unofficial walk-outs by Ford workers in Dagenham, a complaint from shop stewards to the Commission for Racial Equality, as well as a decision to hold a ballot on further industrial action.
Ford have already been forced to apologise to an Indian worker, Sukhjit Parma (pictured), after he won an employment tribunal last month. In what his union described as "the worst possible case of institutionalised racism", Mr Parma explained how his ordeal had made him so ill that he was unable to return to work at the plant. He had even been advised by police to take additional measures to ensure his personal security.
Mr Parma, who broke down in tears at the subsequent press conference, had suffered a variety of racial abuse that included:
Since then, the situation at Ford has escalated.
Tensions were heightened when an Asian shop steward was pushed by a white foreman. However, Ford backed its foreman by rejecting union demands for him to be suspended.
A week later, on Tuesday October 5th, around 1000 workers downed tools and walked out, to be joined later by night shift workers. The BBC reported one worker explaining the reason for the walkout - the first mass walkout at Dagenham for a decade. "There is absolute outrage at the company's position on a whole range of issues ranging from bullying to equality of treatment."
The union also asked the Commission for Racial Equality to launch an investigation into events at Dagenham.
The walkout had cost Ford the production of over 1200 Ford Fiesta cars, their top-selling model. The following morning they were in talks with the union's officials.
Yet 80 more workers from the engine plant walked out next day. The reason for the second action is still not clear from media reports, although T&G officials claimed at the time that it was not race related. Clearly though, there was a great deal of frustration and anger among staff at the Dagenham plant.
That workers remained dissatisfied at Ford's response was demonstrated when on Friday 8th October they voted to hold a ballot for further action against the company.
Ford's European President has claimed in the press that the events at Ford Dagenham are merely "misunderstandings", while pledging that Ford "take matters of equal opportunities and diversity extremely seriously."
This from the same company who value diversity so much that they recently admitted airbrushing a company photo that was to be used in an advertisement so that black faces were changed to white.