By David Litterick and Rupert Neate Last Updated: 7:07PM BST 21 Oct 2008  Nissan became the latest to slash production when it announced it will completely stop building of its Micra and Note models at its Sunderland factory on Friday for two weeks.  When the production line is restarted it will operate until December on a three-day week reminiscent of the factory stoppages in 1974 and the speed of production will be cut by 10pc until March next year.  About 800 employees work on the models at Nissan's flagship Sunderland factory, the biggest car-making site in the UK. The company said there will not be any job losses and pay will not be cut.  However, the reduced operations will result in a 10pc cut in production - a similar reduction to that announced by rival Japanese carmaker Honda, which will significantly curtail production of its Civic model at its Swindon factory by cutting one shift. Japan's second-largest car-maker will produce 22,000 fewer Honda Civic cars between December and March 2009.  Trevor Mann, Nissan's senior vice-president for manufacturing in Europe, said the company was forced to respond to a "quite dramatic and very real downturn".  "This situation has been caused by the global economic downturn - nobody is immune," he said, adding that a number of temporary contracts won't be renewed.  A Honda spokesman said: "Because of the global downturn, there has been a fall in demand in Western Europe so we are adjusting production in Swindon to allow for supply and demand."  The vast majority of cars built in the UK are exported abroad. Production has so far held up and is running 4.5pc ahead of last year. September's figures, seen by The Daily Telegraph, suggest that production actually rose in September to 142,606 cars, compared with 139,283 in September 2007.  However the cuts at Nissan and Honda, which echo the three-day week being imposed at Bentley's Crewe factory, a four-day week now in operation at a Ford plant in Southampton and a Land Rover factory in Solihull, a cut in the number of shifts at Toyota in Derby and falling output at Jaguar in the West Midlands.  Paul Everitt, chief executive of the carmakers' trade body SMMT, said: "We already know that production is being scaled back to reflect demand in global markets and we will see this more clearly in the months ahead.  "It is essential that government works with industry to protect vital manufacturing capability. This includes measures to support domestic demand and sustain longer-term investment in skills and new technology."  The three-day week will prompt memories of the industrial relations nightmares of 1973 and 1974 when the Conservative government, desperate to curb inflation, imposed pay caps on industry. The resulting industrial action led to energy shortages which prompted Edward Heath to introduce the three-day week which lasted from the beginning of January to March 1974.
The spectre of 1970s austerity is hovering over British industry after a    clutch of carmakers announced plans to put workers on a three-day week in    the face of slumping global demand.