The joys of a global market
By Mary Nelis
The Derry City Partnership's widely acclaimed document outlining
a vision for the city in the next 25 years was dropped through
our letter boxes at the same time as United Technology dropped
their bombshell, through a hired PR company, of the closure of
their Blighshane plant in Derry after 27 years. On the same day
Adam Ingram, the New Labour Minister, was in Belfast speaking at
the ``Northern Ireland Exporter of the Year'' awards.
At a meeting with City Councillors and Union officials, Mr Ingram
was told that the only thing being exported in Derry was the 600
jobs of the workers at United Technology car components plant in
Creggan.
The announcement that the plant is to close and the jobs will
relocate to Portugal and Spain, has caused bitter resentment and
anger in the Creggan and Bogside areas of Derry. It is, after
all, the only factory in this area of high unemployment and
social disadvantage.
United Technology started life in Derry some twenty years ago, on
the site of the old BSR factory. It was the major supplier of
harnesses for Ford cars. Its workers were drawn from the
catchment area of the Bogside and Creggan, where long term
unemployment was the norm.
The decision by the company to locate in Creggan was welcomed
with genuine joy by the people of the area. The factory began
production at the height of the civil unrest in the city. On many
occasions workers had literally to crawl into the factory through
clouds of CS gas, tanks, guns, checkpoints and searches.
It is a tribute to the workers that the factory survived the
worst effect of the early years of British army occupation of the
Creggan and Bogside, which threw a ring of military steel around
the areas.
The workers gave the best years of their lives and their skills
to United Technology. The opportunity to work, whether that work
is meaningful or not, is highly prized in Derry and Derry workers
are constantly praised by employers for their dedication and
loyalty to the company.
United Technology workers were no exception. They gave their best
but their best was not good enough for a company whose only
concern was expanding profits and business into the cheaper
production areas of Europe. The poor and the unemployed of
Portugal and Spain will certainly welcome the work stolen from
the poor and unemployed of Derry, who by their sweat and hard
labour made the company a huge yearly profit.
In 1990 Councillor Mitchel McLaughlin warned that British
government claims of economic and political advancement when
European trade barriers were removed was out of touch with
reality. He stated then that the changes would cause increased
factory closure and severe disadvantage for the Six County
economy. The closure of its plant by UT, to relocate to the more
profitable worker killing fields of the poorer European
countries, is only the beginning of a major transitional process
by US global corporations.
This experience is nothing new to Derry. Many of those employed
at UT were former workers of the BSR, which was the first company
to locate on the site.
The BSR, headed by autocrat Dr McDonald, who became a millionaire
on the backs of Derry workers, closed abruptly in 1960. It gave
employment for a number of years to the men of Derry, who
traditionally all their lives took the boat to England for work.
When the factory closed, having allegedly put millions into the
Swiss bank account of McDonald, there was an atmosphere of near
despair in the city. The legacy of the BSR experience would later
find its way onto the streets of Derry in the Civil Rights
Movement and the demand for equality in employment. Derry workers
then indicated that they were no longer prepared to be exploited
to profit the rich.
The same feelings of exploitation and bitterness were expressed
by the workers of United Technology over the past three years. It
is obvious, in retrospect, to see that the decision to relocate
the factory was taken as far back as 1994.
The company had laid off some 400 workers over the past three
years and was threatening the remaining workforce with demands
for more production at less money. In an unprecedented move, the
500 workers signed a letter to The Derry Journal outlining their
concerns that UT were already engaged in a rundown of the
factory. The workers said that ``on the recommendation of the AEEU
we have already given up a lot in order to save jobs at the
plant. In the past six months, we have watched management allow
five lines of Citreon production to disappear from the factory''.
United Technology has taken £2m in government subsidies and the
profits acquired by the sweat of Derry workers. We have learned
once again that the answer to unemployment and poverty, will not
be found in multinationals or global corporations. Tax breaks and
grants given as inducements to these companies, would yield
better returns if invested in the local economy.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)