The action began with an overnight sit-in at the Visteon plant in Belfast and employees are continuing their protest at the factory. More than 100 workers have staged a sit-in, the Unite trade union has said. Earlier, it was announced that 565 staff would go at Visteon car components plants across the UK. Most of the jobs have been lost with immediate effect and two hundred jobs will go at the Belfast factory.

KPMG said it had no alternative but to close the factory and the two others in Basildon and Enfield in England. Administrators have been called in to the factory which is the former Ford plant. Visteon has a total workforce of 600 in the United Kingdom.

Unite convenor John Maguire said the workers at the plant had "been treated disgracefully".

"We have been left with no choice but to occupy the factory to save our jobs and to defend jobs for the people of Belfast," he said.

Fifty people who were sacked on Tuesday are now on the roof of the Enfield plant. Others are holding a sit-in at the plant in Basildon in Essex.

The protesters claimed the company's former owner and main customer, Ford, had promised redundancy contracts which they now want to see honoured.