Thousands of workers at BMW-owned auto plants in the UK are striking today for 24 hours in opposition to the planned closure of the company’s final salary pension schemes.
The strikes were called by the Unite union, which says that the plans to close the company’s current pension scheme could see the retirement benefits of workers being slashed by up to £160,000. The strike is the first by BMW’s British workforce. In a ballot result announced last month, workers across the company’s four manufacturing plants voted by 93 per cent in favour of strikes on a turnout of 72 per cent.
BMW’s Mini model is manufactured at the Cowley plant in Oxfordshire and the Swindon site, Rolls-Royce cars at Goodwood, West Sussex, and engines at the Hams Hall facility near Birmingham.