New laws giving workers greater protection from redundancy will be presented to the House of Commons today, after job losses at Peugeot and Jaguar.
Jim Cunningham (Lab Coventry South) is to highlight the experience of motor manufacturing workers in his constituency.
Coventry has been hit by the announcement that 2,300 jobs are to be axed at Peugeot's Ryton plant in the city.
It came just two years after 1,000 jobs were lost when Jaguar shifted production from the Brown's Lane plant in Coventry to Birmingham.
Mr Cunningham will call for workers to be involved in decisions which could lead to redundancies from the earliest stages. His Notification of Redundancy Bill will be presented to the Commons today. The measures could become law if they gain the support of the Government.
He said: "The Bill looks at the whole process of consultation which employers carry out with the labour force.
"The workforce should be involved in planning, possibly through a workers' committee, not just for issues such as redundancies but also for major investments.
"It would be done before the company makes its final decisions, unlike now.
"It is not good enough to make a decision and then give people 90 days to respond, because that is really no more than the statutory redundancy period."
The Bill would also protect pension funds by giving them an equal claim on a business's assets when a firm goes into administration.
At the moment, pension funds are considered only after creditors and taxes owed to the Treasury, which means work-ers can be left with very little even if they have paid a proportion of their salary into pensions all their working life.
The Ryton plant, where the Peugeot 206 is made, is to close next year. The 206 model will continue to be produced at a plant north of Paris.
