Article from the Sept. 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI

Industrial reports

Moy Park closure campaign abandoned - The lessons must be learned

Paul Dale Fermanagh Socialist Party

T&GWU led campaign to stop the closure of the Moy Park plant in Lisnaskea has been called off with the news that the plant is to shut at the end of September. The contempt with which the company treated the staff is hard to believe. The workforce were called in to a meeting expecting to hear details of a pay offer and instead got notice of the sack. The local management were reported to have been kept equally in the dark.

Yet the closure was despite the factory making money and having received substantial public investment. The campaign to keep the factory open included a march through Lisnaskea, which was well supported in a town that has seen most of its factories now closed.

This march showed the potential for a real campaign, but not long afterwards- on 4 August - the T&GWU threw in the towel and sent out a letter publicly calling off the campaign.

It said: "Sadly, despite a fantastic campaign and huge pressure from the workforce, the community, politicians, the trade union movement and the media, it has not been possible to persuade Moypark to stay at Lisnaskea. We still believe that decision is wrong but the decision is made."

In fact the campaign as it was run had, up to then, failed to put Moy Park under any real pressure. The councillors did nothing except issue statements of support. Workers in the other factories owned by Moy Park weren’t asked by the T&GWU to consider action in support of Lisnaskea. They are now under the threat of similar closures in the future. The question of occupation of the plant was not seriously considered.

Most importantly, the workers were never asked to consider running the factory themselves. The plant and machinery could have been taken into public ownership and the factory could have been a success once again. The firm would not have deserved a penny in compensation.

If they or any other employer say they cannot run a profitable factory, then they should lose the right to run it. Jobs and wages in a depressed rural economy are much too important to be squandered by the likes of Moy Park. That would have sent out a strong message to other companies interested only in maximising profits at the expense of local communities.

The union is now holding out the slender hope of another employer taking over the factory. Unfortunately if one is found, it can do exactly as Moy Park has, take the profits, the suppliers and walk away.

The lessons of all this need to be learnt. If struggles like these are to succeed, we need unions that are prepared to fight rather than just arrange a few protests to let off steam. Nor is there any point in relying on the politicians who, at best, will just go through the motions of seeming to give support.

If the demonstration in Lisnaskea had been followed by an occupation of the plant with a serious campaign to mobilise the local community in support and an appeal for solidarity from other Moy Park workers, these jobs might have been saved.

CSA privatisation threat

By a NIPSA member

THE CHILD Support Agency is to close! This is the recommendation made by the government during the summer.

Sir David Henshaw has proposed that a new Agency should be set up to deliver child support in the future and stated that there is no guarantee that this work will remain in the public sector.

Whatever people think of the CSA and the way it functions, the fact is that there are 1,800 jobs at stake.

The government have acknowledged that the problems of the CSA are not the fault of the staff, but stem from the policy framework and the IT systems (on which nearly one billion pounds of taxpayers’ money was squandered)! Among the functions now likely to be farmed out to the private sector is debt recovery. This means that, instead of negotiating with a civil servant, non-compliant parents may find themselves having to deal with bailiff style debt collectors on their doorsteps.

These latest possible job losses come in the wake of previous announcements to cut over 6,000 jobs in the civil service leaving CSA staff little hope of redeployment to other government departments.

Once again we see that New Labour's recipe for public services is not to improve them but to cut jobs and privatise. These proposals must be resisted.

Workplace 2010 - The great office giveaway

By Jack Thornbury NIPSA (Personal Capacity)

THE GOVERNMENT'S latest manoeuvre to hand over public cash to their private sector speculator friends has now reached Latin American proportions.

In their latest scam, as part of Workplace 2010, the government intends building ten brand new state of the art buildings for the Social Security Agency. These buildings will cost the taxpayer a total of £50 million to build and as soon as they are completed, they will be given to the private sector for free! The private sector will then own the buildings and rent them back to the government.

Private sector profiteers are set to make a fortune from this operation and the public are set to be robbed blind.

This bizarre development would be unbelievable if it wasn’t for the fact that it is just the latest in a long list of New Labour hand outs to private sector scroungers.

INDUSTRIAL SHORTS

NHS supply staff to strike

NHS supply staff in England have voted to go on strike against the proposed sell-off of the supply network to German firm DHL.

DHL – a parcel delivery company – are to take over the supply of everything from stationary to bed linen and MRI scanners.

74% of the 800 UNISON members who were balloted voted for strike action. Strike days have not yet been set as we go to press but are likely to involve action of up to three days at a time.

If it goes ahead this will be the first national strike in the NHS for 18 years. It reflects the growing anger at the creeping privatisation of health being implemented by New Labour.

Unionise call centres

Anti union call centre company, HCL, is resisting attempts by the Communication Workers Union to recruit members at its Apollo Road site in Belfast’s Boucher Road area.

HCL, which employs around 1,800 people at this site and in Armagh, is fiercely anti-union. It took over the Apollo Road site from BT and for a time had to continue to recognise the CWU. Eventually it derecognised the union and, despite the fact that there are many CWU members onsite, still denies recognition and is trying to prevent the union from organising on site.

Call centres are modern day sweatshops. A major drive is needed to win union recognition in HCL and all other call centres.

Daewoo lay-offs

Redundancies have just been announced at the Daewoo Electronics factory in Antrim. Daewoo once employed 1,000 people in the area. Now the workforce is down to 285 and there is a question mark over its future.

The lesson of the failed struggle to keep the Moy Park plant open (see opposite) is that a fighting campaign from the unions is needed if jobs are to be saved.

Unfortunately, the initial response of AMICUS officials to these job losses has not been to advocate any struggle.

With redundancies also announced at Montupet, another factory which like Daewoo was set up with the help of massive government grants, there is now an urgent need for a co-ordinated struggle to save what is left of Northern Ireland’s manufacturing jobs.