Indesit follows Electrolux to Poland

Indesit have closed their cooker factory near Stoke, moving production to Poland, getting their closure in before Electrolux and with far less visibility.

The UNITE/Amicus press release is full of the despair that many manufacturing workers and trade unionists feel. Stoke has been hit very hard by the decline of manufacturing. The company I work for, now Fujitsu, used to (when it was ICL) employ several thousand people manufacturing printed circuit boards in the area. The plants were outsourced, downsized and finally closed.

I do think the press release goes too far, however, talking about there being "no manufacturing" left. I hear the same from many trade unionists in Manchester, where I live, but the reality is a bit more complicated. Nearly all the big old manufacturing plants in Manchester are long gone - these are the plants that were the bedrock of the trade union movement in the city for decades until the 1980s. So union activists see none of the old names left and conclude there's no manufacturing left.

What's actually happened is a combination of:

1. The proportion of manufactured goods produced here has dropped (Electrolux and Indesit being just two of the latest examples)
2. Productivity in manufacturing has risen rapidly, so UK manufacturing employment has plummeted while many parts of UK manufacturing output has not declined. For example, jobs in car manufacturing have been devastated, but the remaining plants produce more cars than decades ago. These aren't always the plants people think of, many of which have gone, but there are big Honda, Nissan and Toyota plants in the UK.
   
3. The factories that remain are generally newer and/or smaller. As union recognition is generally established during periods of high industrial action, a high proportion of workplaces which have been set up since the 1970s are not effectively unionised. Smaller workplaces are also less likely to be unionised than large ones. The effect is that trade unionists are less aware of the factories that are currently operating than of the ones that we've lost.

I think "traditional" manufacturing in Stoke lasted a little longer than in Manchester. You can see from the 2001 census for the Stoke council area, over a quarter of workers were employed in manufacturing at that time, higher than the West Midlands as a whole, and far higher than England. The equivalent table for Manchester (the council area, not Greater Manchester) shows just over 10% employed in manufacturing. That's still a lot more than most union activists would guess though...

This might seem a bit obscure, but I think it's important to know what the problem is if you want to tackle it.

I'm not suggesting there are easy answers, but here are few thoughts:

• A shift in government policy to see manufacturing industry as an essential component of a viable economy.
• Better employment rights to make it harder for employers to up-sticks and leave.
• Better unionisation in manufacturing. Despite the stereotype, most manufacturing workers are not currently unionised (actually, the latest stats say only around 23% are in a union - below the average for the whole UK workforce)
  
• Stronger unions would open up more possibilities to fight job cuts, rather than just fighting for better redundancy money.
• Stopping the thin end of the wedge. Most companies cutting jobs to exploit low-paid workers offshore still require production, marketing, sales, distribution etc in the UK. Uniting those immediately affected with the rest must offer the best chance of success.
• Campaigning for more local production, linking with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.
  

What do you think?

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Electrolux - the official line

The official UNITE-Amicus press release about the closure of the Electrolux Spennymoor plant makes truly depressing reading.

Is negotiating better redundancy terms while our manufacturing industry is decimated really the best the trade union movement can do?

This plant is in Blair's old constituency. It's current losses are less than other plants in other countries - is this plant being shut because it's cheap, easy and quick to fire UK workers?

The government has no meaningful strategy to protect and develop industry and jobs because it is tied to "neo-liberal" free-market dogma which means the strategy is to have no strategy. Billions of our money are being thrown at Northern Rock - not to protect jobs and housing of working people, but to prop up shaky financial markets which gambled and lost. Even the word "nationalisation" is back in the news - but to prop up profit, not to put people before profit.

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Electrolux - another blow to manufacturing

As feared, this morning Electrolux issued a press release announcing the closure of its Spennymoor plant, which currently has about 500 staff.

It's telling that Electrolux put this UK plant under review, but didn't do the same to plants which were suffering greater losses in northern Europe. Could this be because of it's so much cheaper and easier and sack people here?

What an indictment for the neoliberal free-market madness pursued by Blair & Brown. The Spennymoor plant is in Blair's old constituency.

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Electrolux - not Polished off yet

The Electrolux cooker-factory in Spennymoor (in the north-east) is currently "under review", with the results expected in mid-December. [For media coverage, click here]

Workers believe the plant can make a profit. This in the context where a lot of work has already been moved offshore to Poland. The statement from the company talks about the need to return it to acceptable levels of profitability. Other plants have profit issues at least as bad, but are in countries where labour laws are stronger, or government takes more of an interest in protecting manufacturing. Only Spennymoor is "under review".

It's bad enough if your job is under threat because the company you work for goes bust. Far worse if your employer considers throwing you on the scrap heap simply because you're the easiest to chop to make more money elsewhere.

As usual, there are many angles to the situation. Electrolux were happy to accept public money - is it right they can now consider upping sticks without paying it back? When the government and companies are all supposed to be reducing carbon emissions, how can it make sense to close a plant in England, transfer manufacturing hundreds of miles away and ship the products over here? And what an indictment of Tony Blair's beloved free-market that yet another manufacturing plant in his old constituency is under threat. If it's right for the government to bail out the financial markets with billions of pounds, how can it be wrong to intervene to ensure we have a sound and sustainable industrial base?

If, as people fear, Electrolux decide to try to cut jobs, members in Spennymoor will need all our support.

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Manufacturing Lobby

Today saw UNITE staging a lobby of MPs at the House of Commons in defence of manufacturing jobs.

To coincide with this, the union put out a press release highlighting the impact of government procurement policy, which doesn't take into account the economic impact of decisions.

This article from The Journal in the north-east highlights the Spennymoor Electrolux plant, which is under threat as the company considers moving production to Eastern Europe.

The government seems more interested in keeping a few "non-domiciled" billionaires in the country than hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and service sector jobs.

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