The possibility of a shutdown at Ford’s Geelong and Broadmeadows plants hangs on the result of a meeting today with workers from an embattled parts manufacturer.

About a hundred workers at CMI in Melbourne's north are locked out over a dispute over unpaid rent and the company could be placed into administration as soon as today.

AMWU state secretary LEIGH DEEHEM says the union is working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible:

If the issue isn’t resolved by Thursday, when Ford is due to run out of parts, eighteen-hundred Ford workers in Geelong and Melbourne could be forced to take time off.

It’s believed CMI’s landlord entered the factory in the early hours of yesterday morning and locked the building up, after a protracted dispute over rent.