Warning to Ford over racism

Unions and managers met last year to discuss racism

The Ford Motor Company has been warned it must improve its employment practices towards Asian and black workers or face a formal investigation.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has ordered Ford to resolve racial tensions at its largest UK plant - Dagenham in Essex - where ethnic minorities make up about 40% of the workforce.

Ford management says it has not ignored racism

Problems at the plant came to a head last year when Asian production worker Sukhjit Parmar said he had been subjected to a torrent of racist abuse and bullying.

In response to the crisis, Ford management and unions agreed an action plan to stamp out racism at Dagenham.

But the head of legal policy at the CRE, Barbara Cohen, said the commission was not content with the level of progress.

Investigation suspended

She said commissioners had agreed to suspend a formal investigation in exchange for a commitment from Ford Europe that it would "get its house in order".

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme Ms Cohen said an investigation would "not be good news" for Ford, which wanted to sell cars across the community.

She said: "A formal investigation is one of the commission's most important law enforcement powers.

"It enables us to go into a company, to subpoena documents, to require officers to give evidence, to publish our findings and if we find real evidence of discrimination to issue nondiscrimination notices which ultimately are enforceable by the courts."

Without the weight of the CRE behind the company little action was being taken to fully implement the anti-racism policies, she warned.

Citing the case of Mr Parmar, she said: "It took the company about two years to believe what was happening and to do anything about it."

Agreed plan

The action plan agreed in October last year had included:

Appointing a diversity manager responsible for diversity issues

Establishing a joint national equality opportunities and diversity committee at national level and at each plant

Establishing a small joint steering group to develop further details of the equality committees which will report back within 90 days.

Diversity managers are responsible for monitoring the recruitment, training, career development and promotion of ethnic minorities.

They have the authority to take any concerns over racism to senior management.

In April Ford announced it was to end car production at Dagenham, putting 3,000 jobs at risk.