(Tuesday 17 March 2009)
Time for manufacturing summit is now
SNP Enterprise Minister Jim Mather has agreed to hold a summit with "stakeholders" including trade unions on the future of manufacturing industry in Scotland.
The summit can't come soon enough for trade unions.
The latest evidence suggests that Scottish manufacturing is suffering badly as we head deeper into recession.
On Monday, unions and management at NCR Dundee began a 90-day consultation over the proposed closure of the company's plant at Gourdie, which makes bank cash machines. No-one holds out any hope of saving the plant or the 250 jobs which will also disappear.
NCR will retain about 450 jobs in the city, mainly in the important area of research and development. However, the Gourdie plant's closure marks the end of over six decades of manufacturing by the company in Dundee.
US multinational NCR - formerly called National Cash Register and known locally as The Cash - began its operation in the city in 1947. The company is blaming the closure on the global recession, especially in the financial sector which provides the factory with its main market.
But it is worth noting that NCR has other cash machine manufacturing plants in Hungary, India and China which are not being closed and which are likely to pick up any orders in a future economic upturn.
"A devastating blow for the workforce in Dundee and another nail in the coffin for manufacturing in Scotland," was the judgement of Unite regional officer Fiona Farmer.
"The concern is that these skills will go and, when the credit crunch is finally over, there will be no opportunity to resurrect this factory."
The Gourdie site is subject of a planning application, involving NCR which owns it, for a business, leisure and retail park with an Asda store, offices and a 100-bedroom hotel.
The knock-on effect of the closure decision announced last week was felt in Dundee almost immediately as local supplier Texol went out of business with the loss of 41 jobs, on top of 20 who were made redundant in January.
The NCR story reflects the current crisis faced by Scottish industry. Manufacturing accounts for 200,000 jobs in defence, chemicals, petroleum, mechanical engineering, transport, print and publishing and food and drinks. But the authoritative Fraser of Allander Institute has recently forecast that up to 20,000 of these jobs could be lost by 2012.
Unite's Scottish secretary John Quigley has called for a manufacturing summit to be brought forward urgently.
"We must work together," Quigley argues, "to develop a strategy that can help stimulate domestic and external demand to aid economic recovery and keep people in employment during this difficult period.
"This must include awarding contracts and targeting investment in defence, energy, construction, universities and further education institutions, transport and infrastructure."
How could anyone disagree? Apart, perhaps, from Labour's UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.
Along with the campaign by public-service unions such as UNISON to fight local government cuts and the CWU's heroic bid to keep the Royal Mail wholly in public hands, it looks as if the unions are well in tune with the demands of the People's Charter www.thecitizen.org.uk launched down south last week and in Scotland the week before.
The crisis is growing. It's time to bring the economic arguments for intervention and democratic control to our governments both north and south of the border.
Voluntary sector a soft target for cuts
"REDUNDANCIES are now occurring on almost a weekly basis in the sector and it is typically the lowest paid, providing services to the most vulnerable who are affected."
That's the reality in Scotland's "soft target" community and voluntary sector, according to Simon McFarlane of UNISON Scotland. And he argues that it has been exacerbated by the SNP's council tax freeze, which is restricting funding via local authorities.
UNISON, Unite and the Scottish TUC have linked up with Community Care Providers Scotland and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations to hold a rally and lobby of MSPs today in support of their joint petition for fair funding for the nation's voluntary sector.
The petition urges the Scottish government to "demonstrate support for the voluntary sector by agreeing a national framework for public-service contracts based on our 2007 pact to ... ensure equitable wages and conditions between front-line voluntary sector workers delivering public services and public-sector workers and to help deliver five-year funded contracts." The parliament's petitions committee will hear evidence from the voluntary sector representatives this afternoon.
"The message to parliament is clear - our community and voluntary service members can no longer be expected to subsidise the provision of public services through poverty wages and inferior conditions," says McFarlane.
Smith hits nail on head
IT WAS great to see Labour's Elaine Smith back in the Scottish Parliament last week after being off ill for a bit. She made a typically acute contribution in a debate on the right to buy social housing last Thursday.
"It is blatantly obvious that the market is not a device that can adjust to social need, which means that the state must supply housing," said Smith. This should be done not through "third parties at a distance, but through supporting local authorities to build houses."
Picking up on a point made by STUC general secretary Grahame Smith in his recent Morning Star article on housing (March 5), the Coatbridge and Chryston MSP supported the view that the Scottish government could massively boost the economy by initiating the "building of houses with no right to buy."
And it seems that all such arguments on the economy now lead to the People's Charter. The Scottish version of the Charter demands, among other things, "decent homes for all - 250,000 new publicly owned homes in Scotland over the next five years" as well as a stop to repossessions and control of rents.
As Smith said, "All socialists should support that call."
Jock Nicolson book launch
I'M looking forward to the first publication from new imprint Praxis Press. A Turbulent Life, the autobiography of Jock Nicolson, is due for release this week.
Nicolson was a leading activist in the National Union of Railwaymen, a Communist organiser who worked with Willie Gallacher in Fife and a tenants' leader in the famous 1950s St Pancras rent strikes.
The official book launch will take place at The Town House, Cadzow Street, Hamilton, on Thursday March 26 at 7pm, chaired on behalf of Praxis Press by labour historian Professor John Foster.
Phil McGarry, Scottish and Northern Ireland organiser for RMT, former Morning Star Scottish correspondent Andrew Clark and Dr Rob Duncan from the Scottish Labour History Society will share their memories and view on Nicolson's life and times.
A Turbulent Life, a paperback priced £8.99, is being distributed by Unity Books, 72 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 7DA. Check out www.unitybooks.org.uk or call (0141) 204-1611 for more information.
Cuban tour
THE Women in Cuba tour reached Scotland this week. Celebrating Cuba's 1959 revolution and offering an opportunity to see what this has meant for Cuban women, Carolina Amador Perez from the Federation of Cuban Women and Gilda Chacon Bravo of the Cuban Trade Union Centre are speaking at a number of meetings in Scotland.
On Wednesday, the pair will be addressing the cross-party group on Cuba in the Scottish Parliament at 5.30pm and on Thursday a meeting will be held in Lecture Room 5, Appleton Tower, Crichton St, Edinburgh University at 7pm.
Find out more from Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign via scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk or (0141) 221-2359.
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