"WITH UNITY YOU CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS" - reflections on Belfast shipyard workers' victory

Thursday 3rd October, 2019, will become an important date in the history of Belfast workers' struggles, and indeed of workers well beyond the city limits.
That morning, a proud but emotional group of workers returned to work in the Harland and Wolff shipyard, nine weeks after they had faced total, permanent closure.

By seizing control of their workplace at the end of July, the 123 members of Unite and GMB trade unions prevented the devastating disappearance of this landmark workplace. They defied and defeated the owners who had run the yard into the sand; the Tory government of Boris Johnson who dismissed appeals for government intervention with the contemptuous remark "this [closure] is a commercial decision"; and the sceptics in our own trade union movement who habitually greet closures and redundancies with the refrain "there's nothing we can do to stop it." 

They fought like lions

If these brave workers hadn't taken swift, united, militant collective action, the hovering vultures would have swooped, asset-stripping, turning this shipyard, established in 1861, into yet another marina or other waterfront tourist attraction. 

Instead of caving in with whimpering resignation, these workers and their local union officials fought like lions, refused to give up their belief in the rich potential for the yard and its skills, and demanded renationalisation to build that future, highlighting especially their readiness and ability to contribute to a thriving green energy industry.

Where private capitalist ownership squandered workers' skills and the unique facilities of Europe's biggest dry dock, working men and women had a vision for the future - and fought for that dream. 

Whilst their central demand for nationalisation fell on the deaf lugs of Boris Johnson and his cabal, the nine weeks of relentless campaigning and the workers' case for a thriving future for the yard has won over a new owner, InfraStrata. Eighty of these fearless fighters returned to work on Thursday 3rd October, with confident predictions of that number rapidly growing to 400.

I spoke to Harland and Wolff's Unite shop steward, JOE PASSMORE, his first evening back at work. 

"It's been quite emotional today, Richie," said Joe, with classic understatement. "It's historic." 

I asked him where their determination to fight back came from. 

"Previous owners tried to run it into the ground, with contempt and mismanagement. There were community leaders,  including ex shipyard workers, talking to the company - going back years, we've now discovered - telling them about the possibilities and potential. But they were too aloof to listen. But we knew we had a successful industry in the making and we were not prepared to let it suffer a slow death. That's where our belief and determination came from."

Workers' Unity the Key to Victory

Their fighting spirit and determination inspired the solidarity of workers far and wide. Very significantly, the H&W workers were themselves united; not divided on sectarian lines. Nor did they allow any hard or soft border to cut across their working class unity; amongst the trade unionists who joined their solidarity rallies (usually with generous donations in hand) at the shipyard gates were strikers in Northern Ireland's civil service and health service, but also workers from Dublin and veterans of sit-ins at Waterford Glass. 

Occupation and Renationalisation

But how did they prevent closure? What lessons for workers facing similar threats - whether the Ballymena Wrightbus workers, or others across Ireland and Britain? 

Joe is keen to inform and inspire others:

"The first key to our success was how we let everyone know what was happening, with use of social media. That meant we didn't have to hold meetings every day. Our members knew everything we were doing, including the crises we faced and the brick walls we ran into. 

The next key was our use of the press to reach everyone. The first ten days especially we were headline news in every paper and TV, making sure we were in everyone's thoughts. 

Social media and the press are vehicles, but the key to it all was preparation and organisation. Even while we were in negotiations with the previous owners we set up our own Cobra Committee,  where we looked at the worst case scenario,  and planned to occupy the plant. We took on board the lessons of previous situations where they'd done this, like Visteon and even in Scotland.  

"Our intention was to lock the gates and let nobody in. But what we actually did, without pre-planning it, was that we took control of the gates, and with people we judged were good for our cause, we applauded them through the gates. Control of the yard gates was key, not locking the world out. 

"We needed the forest of flags from all different trade unions at the gate, and our visible presence. We even had Belfast tour buses being detoured to visit us, a tourist attraction, with tourists standing up waving to us! We had to be in the public eye, to get our case across."

"You Can't Buy Commitment Like That!"

I suggested the relationship between workers and their union is a critical factor in any battle. Joe told me of his pride in the workforce and the union. 

"Each time we got coverage in the press it gave our people confidence and the belief grew that we would get an outcome. We had people covering the nightshift on the gate every single night for nine weeks. They never got a penny pay for doing this, don't forget. That's an incredible level of commitment. You can't buy that. They never stopped believing. They knew where we were, even the setbacks in the campaign, and they still believed in us."

So where are they up to now, after gaining a new owner, InfraStrata? Joe explains:

"All along our vision was about saving the jobs, but by getting back inside to then relaunch the yard. "We've had nine weeks of sitting in the wind and cold, having earnest discussions about the future. We have a strong union to deal with any issues that arise. Our job is to reeducate them into leading the company from the bottom up. The guy who's taken over has promised the union, through our reps, will be part of decisions.

"The core of Infrastrata's current work is controversial, it's building gas storage facilities. But he says his long term interest is in repairs and green energy,  and that's our realm. 

And the other thing that inspires our confidence in the future is that he's looking at apprenticeships and reskilling. We didn't even have to tell him. We are skilled tradesmen, but all of a certain age. If only we can get hold of young people and teach them the skills - even enough to be semiskilled steelworkers or welders in the interim before apprentices start - that would be a huge boost. We are hopeful for the future. 

And the new owner's hopeful of 400 jobs in the yard."

Joe sees their own battle in its broader context. 

"Our situation is a microcosm of the whole UK. There's big possibilities in green energy, but to build on those opportunities we may not have the people and that's scary. 

It's contradictory when the government give the orders for green energy but haven't been responsible enough to build up the workforce, with the skills. A Labour government would face the same. We really have to look at infrastructure as well as orders. We need skilled employment to be the absolute priority before we lose it."

In another sense too, Harland and Wolff is a microcosm.
Joe explained to me how the government sets budgets and prices for green energy, "so private companies look for the cheapest possible option. Big companies cut to maintain profit, so when it gets down to small companies they won't take on work that won't make a profit. The likes of H&W just about break even. The government won't subsidise, they are trying to do it on the cheap. They don't seem to see the bigger picture and the effect of their actions, behind the political headlines." 

To me that underlines the absolutely justified central demand of these workers' campaign, for nationalisation of H&W. 

But not in isolation; as we've repeatedly written throughout this battle for survival, we need public ownership of all the shipyards and the entire energy sector (alongside transport, construction and the banks) to plan and invest in a clean, green, sustainable future, with full involvement and input to decisions by the shopfloor experts: workers like those who've just saved the Belfast shipyard. 

Replace the Orange and Green Politicians

Fighting for future generations will have been a steep learning experience for every worker involved. Amongst many other lessons, the role of Orange and Green politicians will have been exposed. 

One memorable moment in their campaign was the announcement by Unite that they would stand workers' candidates in East Belfast and elsewhere, a challenge that certainly concentrated the minds of the foot-dragging DUP politicians, who had done nothing to wield their leverage over the Tory government to pursue workers' demand for government intervention, for renationalisation to the save the shipyard. 

Speaking to me the night the victorious trade unionists had returned to work, Joe was blunt in his appraisal.  

"The politicians played little or no part. Even those we met at the TUC Congress, it was all words of sympathy, not saying what they would do for us, not one of them saying how they'd go about it. But it's action that wins struggles, not sympathy."

Writing as a socialist who grew up amidst the destructive Orange and Green politics that curses the working class in N Ireland, I hope the threat issued by Unite will grow into an anti-sectarian, united working-class challenge in elections, with worker candidates backed up by the unions and cross-community groups, taking up the class issues that unite ordinary people.
That would be another massive monument to the united victory of the Harland and Wolff workers of 2019. 

Moving Mountains!

This heroic battle, and particularly the fact it won the jobs back, has sent ripples out across workplaces. As Joe told me, "Every dispute now the first thing workers say to the union officials is should we occupy?!" 

When I asked Joe for his core message to other workers facing job losses or closures, it was the same solid, inspiring one that he has carried with him at meetings throughout the past nine weeks.

"If you have a cause and believe you are right, don't be afraid to speak out. 

"A voice among a couple of friends is great, but when everyone stands as one, united, that's real strength. That's when you get publicity, and the bigger your noise the bigger your chances of victory. 

"There's incredible strength in unity and people have to realise that with unity you can move mountains."

DRIVE OUT THE TORIES WITH MASS DEMOS - not reliance on judges!

Anyone worth their salt will rejoice at the humiliating denunciation of Boris Johnson's illegal suspension of the Westminster parliament by the unanimous decision of all eleven judges in the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court.   


Johnson is an unelected Prime Minister, chosen by 90,000 Tory party members. He used arcane powers resting within the entirely appointed, unelected Privy Council to enlist the powers of the unelected, medieval monarchy to prorogue parliament - to bypass any limited checks and accountability imposed upon him by MPs. 

So, the unprecedented and excoriating verdict of the Supreme Court judges against this marauding would-be dictator, with his Eton-educated sense of upper-class entitlement, is to be celebrated. 

But reliance on the unelected, upper-class judiciary to win justice for the working-class majority against the rampaging Tories is a dangerous delusion, which far too many mainstream (i.e. pro-capitalist) politicians are only far too eager to feed to the population. 

Instead of relying on judges for protection, we need to agitate and organise for action led by the single biggest civic organisation in society, the trade union movement. Which has been all too lacking so far in these tumultuous times.  

Johnson's Classic Trumpism 

Johnson has consciously cultivated the image of a lovable, bumbling buffoon. Far from it. He's a vicious, calculating, dangerous enemy of working-class people, prepared to go to any lengths to maintain the rule of the grotesquely privileged elite that he is an integral part of.

Just one of many illustrative examples: he was the first prominent Tory to publicly call for a ban on the right to strike for public sector workers, while he was Mayor of London. Thus setting the pace and the foundations for the Tory government's subsequent 2016 Trade Union Act - which has erected more and higher hurdles to a democratic majority for trade union action than the average horse encounters at Aintree. 

Now, amidst all the dizzying twists and turns, all the bizarre and archaic parliamentary manouevres, one thing is clear: Johnson is trying to paint himself as ‘the people's champion’, the hero without a cape who is determined to deliver 'the will of the people', only obstructed by the rotten, corrupt politicians. Classic Trumpism. 

Right wing populism designed to fool the people 

The idea of BoJo (or Trump) being the people's champion against the establishment is a vomit-inducing joke. Millionaires standing up for the millions? Aye, right! 

The real and present danger is that by these manoeuvres, posing as the Brexit hardman, Johnson could mop up most of the Brexit Party voters, and with the treachery of his own parliamentary Blairites splitting Corbyn's Labour asunder, win an outright majority in a general election.  

Which would usher in a period of class-war savagery not witnessed since the dark days of Thatcher's dictatorial regime in the 1980s. For Johnson is hell-bent on winning a mandate - through demagogic, populist lies about representing the people against the widely unpopular parliament - to be an uncontrolled semi-dictator, shorn of the checks and balances of parliament. 

Johnson Wants a Trump Deal

Then he would unleash his preferences for ripping up even the limited protections of workplace rights enshrined in some of the more progressive EU Directives (there are many utterly regressive ones too!) - such as on paid holidays, breaks, the Working Time Directives, and "ripping up red tape" on health and safety regulations. Not to mention proposals by the same Tory think tank that initiated Universal Credit which recently recommended retirement at 75.

And his vision of a post-Brexit Britain is based on a Trump Deal, where whole swathes of the NHS would be handed over to US multinationals for profiteering at the expense of public health. 

As an aside, dewy-eyed EU fanatics (SNP and Scottish Green leaders included) should also be reminded that the same plans were afoot under Britain's EU membership, through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP – between the EU and United States. 
In or out of the EU, capitalism means ruthless exploitation for profit, and threats to the single greatest achievement of the post-War workers' movement, the NHS. 

 

Capitalist justice being handed out at Orgreave, 1984

Don't Rely on Unelected Judges for Justice!

It's right to rejoice at the Supreme Court ruling against Johnson's proroguing of parliament, and to use that judgement as an extra argument for his immediate resignation. But when even Labour left-wingers praise the neutrality and righteousness of the judiciary - or fall over themselves with concern at the Queen being lied to by Johnson - they are sowing extremely dangerous illusions, and dodging the central task of helping to build a mass movement of the working class to protect ourselves from the rampages of Johnson and the Tories.

An extra-parliamentary movement, rather than total reliance on parliamentary manoeuvres alone, let alone reliance on the judges for justice (or the monarchy for some mythical neutrality that rises above the murky world of politics).

For starters, the judiciary are divided on this whole issue, with different Court bodies declaring Johnson's actions legal in some, illegal in others. So not a solid defence of democracy there, then!

But far more to the point, justice - like most things in life - is class based.

The Courts have frequently been used to mete out brutal injustice to workers who dare defy the rule and ruin of the rich. 

A Dirty History of Repression 

In the 1970s, Ricky Tomlinson, Des Warren and the Shrewsbury pickets were jailed - and tortured - for their role in a building workers' strike, on trumped up charges, under an obscure law that was exhumed as a weapon against these workers in struggle - the 1875 Conspiracy Act.

In the 1980s, miners and their communities were hammered with the help of the Courts - and the millionaires' media, the police, secret services, undercover use of army personnel, jail sentences and legislation on benefits to starve them into submission. Thatcher and her parasitic, financial wing of the capitalist class were aided by the judiciary as they laid waste to industry and sought to smash the key obstacle to their mission, the organised trade union movement.

Numerous groups of workers and their unions have been denied the right to fight back and resist assaults by the government and employers in Court rulings against democratic majorities in strike ballots.

And that's not to even elaborate on the dirty, inglorious history of the British capitalist judiciary in brutal miscarriages of justice against the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire family, the Hillsborough 96, and countless more.

Speaking at USDAW Annual Delegate Meeting 

Call Trade Union-led Demos

No, we urgently need those in authoritative, leading positions in the trade union and labour movement to stop peddling illusions in the judges and start organising and agitating for rallies and demonstrations to defend the working class against the rampaging attacks planned by Johnson and his upper-class crew. 

At the national Executive Council of my own union, Usdaw - which I was elected onto by the Scottish members last year - I've argued for such action to be fought for in the structures of the TUC and STUC. At the May, June, July and September Usdaw EC meetings I've repeatedly put forward the proposal for the TUC and STUC (plus their equivalents in Wales and N Ireland) to call and mobilise for demos around the theme 'We won't pay for Boris's Brexit'. For putting forward concrete demands in defence of our jobs, wages, workplace' rights, migrant workers' rights, the NHS... with the aim of uniting workers who voted Remain and Leave.  

Nobody disagreed each time I proposed this. All agreed the toxic division in the working class over Brexit must be fought with action and arguments based on the common class interests of workers who voted differently in the 2016 Referendum - introduced by Cameron to fend off Farage and the Tories' own right flank. 

No Call for Action at TUC Congress

As a delegate at the more recent TUC Congress, we heard many excellent speeches on the very same theme of wanting to heal the division in the working class arising from Brexit - including one that particularly chimed with me from Unite's Howard Beckett, about growing up in a country where people were defined by their attitudes to a Border, which he (and I) chose to reject in favour of trade unionism and socialism.

But I sat (and tried to get in to speak!) awaiting a clear call for unifying union-led rallies and demonstrations to defend working class interests - and topple the Tories - in vain! 

Yet even now, at this eleventh hour, that's what is urgently needed, if we are not to sleep walk into a majority Johnson government that feels emboldened to decimate our rights, jobs and services, confident in the belief that the leadership of the TUC won't match fire with fire. 

Posties gear up for huge conflict with cowboy millionaires

Unite the Many Separate Struggles

The heroic fight put up by the united workers of Belfast's Harland and Wolff shipyard - occupying the yard since the end of July, demanding renationalisation to save the yard, jobs and skills, and for a plan based on green energy production - was rightly and roundly applauded at the TUC Congress.

So were the fighting speeches of CWU leaders Dave Ward and Terry Pullinger, as they won the unanimous backing of delegates from all 48 unions present for the planned strikes by 100,000 Royal Mail workers, against the vicious assaults on the workforce and postal service by the latest millionaire cowboy to take over the privatised Royal Mail.

Similar warmth and solidarity was given to other groups of workers waging their own strikes and struggles, including librarians, NHS staff and cleaners in the civil service. 

All of which points to the potential for pulling workers together in action in our common, class interests - regardless of how people voted in 2016 on Brexit.

New generation take action 

Furthermore, a whole new generation could be enlisted to such anti-Tory demonstrations, if calls for defence of workers’ rights, jobs and public services is married to concrete demands for a Green New Deal to combat the climate crisis, creating at least 1.5 million new, quality, unionised jobs and apprenticeships. 

#StopTheCoup Rallies

Substantial demonstrations have been staged against Johnson's brazen trampling on even the vestiges of democracy that capitalism has conceded, in the form of parliamentary elections, under the banner #StopTheCoup. But these have been mostly called - and dominated in terms of platform speakers - by groups wishing to block or reverse the Brexit vote, advocating Remain and claiming undiluted virtues for the EU. By definition, that alienates workers who voted Leave - vast numbers of whom are not racists, but were lashing out their disgust at the establishment's decades of neglect, whether at EU or UK levels. 

No Such Thing as 'The National Interest'

During all the current parliamentary shenanigans, we are subjected to calls for 'a government of national unity' to steer us through the Brexit crisis. 
Loud amongst these voices is that of new LibDem leader, Jo Swinson, who of course draws the line at the notion of Jeremy Corbyn being a caretaker Prime Minister - proffering instead the option of somebody like Tory grandee, Kenneth Clark. 
Hardly a surprise from someone who was instrumental in assaulting sickness and disability benefits; imposing student tuition fees; cutting funding for youth training; preventing caps on fees charged by landlords; and blocking a tax on bankers' bonuses...  in her tenure as a Coalition partner in crimes with Cameron's Tories. 
The same Jo Swinson famously advocated a monument to Maggie Thatcher - something I suspect she didn't highlight in her election manifesto in former mining villages around East Dunbartonshire!

There's no such thing as one national interest 

Two Nations - Us and Them

Instead of peddling the dangerous nonsense of needing SNP, Labour, LibDem and rebel Tory politicians to “come together in the national interest”, we need to recognise there is no such thing as ‘the national interest’.

Which ‘nation’ does this refer to? The 0.01% of the population whose income has tripled, or the millions of workers whose wages have suffered the longest, harshest fall since the time of the Peterloo Massacre, 200 years ago?

The Big Six energy companies piling up mountains of profit, or the million Scottish families shivering through winters due to fuel poverty?

The giant agribusinesses and supermarkets, or the workers turning in desperation to food banks?

It’s the interests of the working class we need to act in defence of; the vast majority of the population.

Instead of perpetuating and exacerbating the Remain/Leave divide, we need action based on the common class interests of working-class people, regardless of how they voted in the false, binary choice offered them in 2016. 

The power of united workers in action needs to be called up 

TUC and STUC - Call Demos to Unite Against the Tories!

The TUC,  Scottish TUC and individual unions should urgently step into the breech and give such a lead, naming the day for mass rallies, then linking together solidarity for those in struggle (like Royal Mail workers, RMT members, etc) with youth climate strikers and working class communities facing the axe of escalating cuts and deprivation. 

The crisis in the Tory party is historically unprecedented. The oldest capitalist party in Europe is ripped asunder. Their appointed Prime Minister now has a parliamentary 'majority' of about MINUS 43! 

They shouldn't be let off the ropes. More than any other single organisation, the trade unions have the potential to give a decisive lead, winning the support of other sections like climate strikers, by calling rallies and demonstrations that could heal the wounds and divisions over the false choices of a capitalist EU or a capitalist Britain.

The time is rotten ripe for trade union and labour movement leaderships to step up to the plate, rather than sit back and rely on judges and parliamentary shenanigans to save us from the savagery planned by the people's enemy, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Harland & Wolff: THE POWER OF WORKERS!

At the end of July, the iconic Harland and Wolff Belfast shipyard was declared dead by politicians and 

management alike. The 123 workers and their unions (Unite and GMB) seized the initiative, seized hold 

of the yard, and demanded “Save Our Shipyard – Renationalise Now!”.

Their courageous, decisive action and clear-cut battle-cry has mustered the active support of workers 

all over Ireland, north and south, as well the UK, USA, South Africa, and across Europe. Daily solidarity 

visits, collections for the hardship fund, and solidarity rallies and marches, have given a glimpse of the 

latent power of a united working class determined and willing to take action.

Occupied - Renationalise Now!

When the politicians – particularly the DUP, who ‘represent’ the shipyard area of East Belfast – refused 

to take meaningful action to pound the minority regime of Boris Johnson into saving the yard, its jobs 

and skills, the workers declared they will stand trade union-backed candidates against them in a 

general election.

This determined stance and collective action has not only inspired thousands of trade unionists, but 

brought the local DUP politicians to heel, and won extensions (by the administrators) of the ‘unpaid 

temporary layoff’ period to 30 September, buying time to either achieve renationalisation or get a 

serious buyer, with every existing job guaranteed.

Four weeks after the yard’s obituaries were being written, five credible bids are now being 

negotiated. That’s the potential power of collective union action, which needs to be deployed 

far more generally.

Two Futures

This battle provides a glimpse of two stark choices for the future. 

One where the government is prepared to let the whole community, jobs and skills sink to the 

bottom of the Irish Sea, because, in Johnson’s words, “this is a commercial decision.” 

Or one where the collective strength and action of workers through their unions secures 

public ownership and a whole new green industrialisation, with quality jobs for the future.

The entire trade union movement – including those gathering at the TUC in Brighton, should 

pile in with solidarity until victory for the Harland and Wolff workers – and apply its lessons 

across the board.

Joe Passmore (on right), UNITE shop steward, with Paul Beattie (GMB)

I spoke to JOE PASSMORE, Unite shop steward in Harland & Wolff, about their heroic       showdown with those who would leave an industrial desert in Belfast and call it progress!

Richie: YOU'VE TAKEN ACTION TO STOP CLOSURE OF THE SHIPYARD. WHAT WOULD 

THE IMPACT OF CLOSURE HAVE BEEN, PERSONALLY OR GENERALLY?

Joe: “The impact would have been on the wider community. Yes, it was about our 123 jobs, but 

the number of jobs generated when we get a  contract goes into the hundreds, and a few years 

back we had 1,500 working here. A lot of them local people, living in Belfast, feeding into the local 

economy. 

It would have been a catastrophic loss, and also a lot of industries feed off us. In fact a lot of jobs 

have been lost in other companies since we went into administration.

But it’s not only about jobs, Harland and Wolff is iconic in Belfast. The idea that those giant cranes 

would become a monument to the past would be heart-breaking. And aside from the emotional part, 

an economic disaster.”

RV: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OCCUPY THE YARD?

Joe: “We occupied because this was a set-up. The more we learn, the more we think plans to close 

this place go back years, with key players including politicians and government departments.

They sold us a dream about refitting cruise liners and gave an exclusivity clause to the company 

promising this, MJM Marine, of Newry. Two weeks before they were meant to finalise the deal, 

MJM withdrew the bid, cut it from £9m to £2m, and didn't include the workforce in their plans!

Their plan was to bring people in from abroad, on slave wages, and then get rid of them. That's

 what this company has done elsewhere.

Pulling the plug was blatant profiteering at the expense of working people.

There was intense anger at this. The union held meetings at board level with the owners, and took 

over the running of the meetings! We called in the politicians. But we also set up our very own

 "Cobra Committee", a Council of War.

We made it plain we are not going to lie down. We planned to take control and that's exactly 

what we've done, blocking off all entrances bar one. And our motto is that we only let people 

in who have our future at heart; we will not accept the vultures.

Five or six companies are starting to finalise bids this week. Why were they never in the loop before?

They were excluded because of the agenda to close the shipyard. Now they are falling over themselves 

because of the stand we've taken and the publicity it's gained. We've scared off the vultures and scared 

the living hell out of the politicians.

The DUP has the ear of the government but wasn't prepared to do anything. We were butting heads 

with them. It's only very recently they've shown any willingness to help, because we had them on the 

ropes. 

We focused their minds by announcing we would oppose them in East Belfast in a general election, 

taking away workers' votes, which would lose the seat for the DUP.”

RV: YOUR CALL FOR RENATIONALISATION HAS BEEN DYNAMITE IN LIFTING THE 

SIGHTS OF WORKERS HERE. WHY DO YOU DEMAND THAT?

Joe: “Renationalisation is the easy way to solve this. We have plenty of work we could bring in right 

now.

Before they pulled the plug, BAe packages for submarines worth about £3m were lined up to come 

to us, with all the technical stuff sorted.

Even since going into administration, enquiries about use of our docks for ship-repair work, worth 

about £1m-£1.5m, have come in. So we could already have enough work to keep us going up to 

Christmas. But we couldn’t take the work because we don’t have an owner.

The government are aware of all this, and the work it could bring in, but seem reluctant to go near 

the word nationalisation. I don't care what they call it, but it's the obvious solution.

We need to force industrial leaders to recognise the advantages of long term planning and

investment in people over short-term financial gain. the consequence for continuing on the 

present trend will be catastrophic to British industry. 

Looking at Ferguson's in Scotland, even the DUP parliamentary leader has recently said there's no 

reason why if the devolved Scottish government can nationalise, that the UK national government 

can't do so.

Now it looks like we need to rely on the big hitters to buy us.”

RV: ANOTHER SOURCE OF INSPIRATION TO MANY OF US IS YOUR CALL FOR RENEWABLE 

ENERGY PRODUCTION AT H&W. WHY?

Joe: “That has to be a big consideration. At least two of the five bidders are concentrating on 

renewable energy. The last ship we built was 2004, it's been mostly green energy production 

since. We have a history of it, and have all the prototypes. It's what we are capable of.”

Previous article in Scottish Socialist Voice 

RV: WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN MESSAGES TO TRADE UNIONISTS HERE?

Joe: “We have hit a nerve with our stance. We've found a way of fighting. We will not let anyone 

destroy our communities for short-term financial gain. 

My biggest wish of all is that other people, other workers, see something unfair, morally corrupt, 

and that they stand together, refuse to accept it. If we don't take charge, say we're not moving 

until these things are put right, the whole of industry will be destroyed.

My main message to other trade unionists: this is what you can do if you stand together.

We are 100% unionized, but it's not enough to get a membership, this is what the unions should 

be doing. Get over the defeat of the miners and other issues. We are stronger and smarter. We 

shouldn't underestimate what we can do. Several other disputes in Northern Ireland are drawing 

on this example, beginning to see the potential.”

………...

Send union donations to either Unite or GMB offices in Belfast - help sustain this very 

important struggle. 

Unite, 26-34 Antrim Rd, Belfast BT15 2AA

GMB, 1A Victoria Rd, Holywood  BT18 9BA 

September 20: WORKERS AND YOUNG PEOPLE UNITE AGAINST THE CAPITALIST POLLUTERS!

Youth climate strike, Sydney, Australia

As we live through the molten heat, thunder and lightning, floods and general climate chaos of recent weeks, new reports on the catastrophic impact of global warming highlight the urgency of action. 

And plans are in motion for the biggest global protest action so far, on 20 September, with striking school students appealing to workers to join them in 'a climate general strike'. 

A new Australian academic study warns of “a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end” by 2050!

Even at the less apocalyptic end of the scale, there is widespread agreement that unless the impact of relentless plundering of the planet by the likes of Shell, BP and the banking sector that finances their environmental rampages for profit is reversed, the world's poorest will suffer most – and devastatingly.

Flooding, mudslides, raging fires, homes wiped out, loss of clean water and destruction of farming land are already happening, and could be joined by escalated wars and conflict.

No wonder tens of thousands of young people have decided enough is enough; started the Fridays for Future school strikes; staged bold, eye-catching direct-action protests - and called for a global 'climate general strike' on 20 September. 

That call, that appeal to workers to join the school students’ protests, is a very welcome glimmering of recognition of the potential role and power of collective workers’ action to challenge the climate crisis. 

Harland & Wolff workers demand 'Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now'

Harland and Wolff Workers Inspire Others

As 20 September looms, we've had glimpses of that potential power in the land, as groups of workers and their unions take collective action on their own immediate struggles for survival. 

Probably the most dynamic display of the power that needs to be unleashed more generally - with concrete demands that point to solutions - has been the courageous and audacious action by the workers in Belfast's Harland and Wolff shipyard. 
During 1939-45 war production, 35,000 worked there! As part of the deindustrialisation and deskilling of the economy - in favour of cheap-labour, insecure, service sector jobs and fast profits - the yard has been decimated, with a mere 130 now employed there. The last time a ship was built was in 2003. And the current battle is to prevent outright closure.

Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now!

Under the privatised ownership of Norwegian Fred Olsen's, these highly skilled workers turned to ship repairs and construction of offshore equipment for wind turbines, oil and gas drilling. But Olsen faces bankruptcy, tried to sell H&W, convinced the workforce a buyer named Flack was the bees’ knees, until he flacked off and left the workers and their families facing closure on 30 July.

Rather than lie down in abject surrender, the workers and their unions - Unite and GMB - staged an occupation of the yard days before the administrator was due to wield the knife, and made a clear, stark demand: Save Our Shipyard - Renationalise Now!

Their fighting action and demands rallied the support of a whole array of other trade unionists and young people.

People Power: ‘Together we become Giants’

This highly visible, militant collective action - with the clear-cut call for the government to take over the yard and save the jobs and skills - won at least a short reprieve from closure.

As UNITE rep Joe Passmore said,

"This is people power, a small step, but we were due to close today if it hadn't been for our action. Not just ours, but the actions of the entire trade union movement which has responded en masse. It shows that when we shout together, somebody has to listen. When we stand together, we become giants." 

Nationalisation would allow diversification and create vastly more jobs

Climate Crisis is a Workers’ Issue

This battle highlights several critical points of general significance: the utter inability of private capitalism to secure jobs and a future for the next generation; the power of organised workers to effect change, because of their role in the economy (in contrast to pleading with remote politicians for solutions); the central role of the working class in the struggle to utterly change the system and thereby protect the environment from the rapacious destruction by profit-hunting capitalist owners, whose only concern is short-term maximisation of profit margins; and the equally pivotal solution of democratic public ownership in order to protect people and planet alike. 

Diversify to Clean Production

Harland and Wolff workers have skills they want to utilise and pass on to the next generation. They are rightly demanding nationalisation to achieve that. 
They have already diversified use of their skills to an extent, but the entirely piecemeal nature and appallingly limited (in fact, declining) rate of investment by governments and big business in clean, renewable energy means the potential for the yard in these fields has been totally untapped, leaving workers looking into the abyss.

They are demanding some of the substantial Royal Navy contracts should go to Belfast, and their decisive action could embarrass Johnson into conceding that. In itself that would be a victory for collective union action - and would buy time to campaign for urgent diversification of production into the likes of marine engineering for offshore energy production, as part of a publicly owned green energy industry. 

Scotland's offshore energy could be a massive source of jobs - if publicly owned

BiFab & the Caley - Cases for Public Ownership

Meantime in Scotland, two groups of workers face devastation that could easily be averted, and transformed into secure, expanded, socially useful production, if the Scottish government had the political ideology and will to take them into public ownership: the BiFab yards in Methil and Burntisland, and the Caley railway workshop in Springburn. 

 

Rally at the Caley - 163 years of tradition wiped out

Workers were in tears of rage and sadness as they rallied at the Caley on the day it shut down, after 163 years of rail manufacturing. That is industrial vandalism, by the capitalist owners since privatisation, and by the SNP government who spurned the unions' calls for nationalisation. 
It could be an integral part of a public rail and transport network, building and repairing rolling stock for a vastly expanded and improved rail service. 
And as the SSP has pioneered and fought for over the years, a fare-free public transport system would slash car use, combat poverty and pollution - a radical and immediate contribution to tackling climate change. An example of workers’ jobs, skills and livelihoods being vastly improved whilst reversing the destruction of the planet wreaked by capitalism.

 

Empty rhetoric about Scotland leading the way on green energy not matched by action

At BiFab, the Fife yards are to be awarded production of a paltry 8 out of the total 54 turbine jackets ordered for the massive, £2bn Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind project, just off the same Fife coast. The promise is of this saving "up to 200 jobs". 
That's 'up to 200' more jobs than would have existed if there hadn't been a vigorous campaign by the unions and local communities. But it’s still an insult; the other 46 jackets will not be built a few miles from the offshore windfarm, but in Indonesia! Built by cheap labour, then shipped across the globe and up the Fife coast by diesel-burning barges. 
So much for the boasts by the Scottish government of Scotland pioneering green energy! 

Public Ownership a Key Solution

Full and democratic public ownership of all forms of energy, transport, construction, shipyards and the banks is at the heart of a solution to pollution.

To have a just transition from fossil fuels to clean green energy, but with guarantees that all the jobs and conditions of today's workers in the energy sector are protected and transferred by agreement with their unions into a green public energy company.

To deploy the skills of workers in the shipyards, railway workshops and others to build the new ferries and the fleets of buses, trains and trams to create a world-class, free, integrated public transport network.

To create 100,000s of well-paid, unionised jobs and apprenticeships in a Green New Deal for the working class. 

To resurrect the social housing sector, building at least 100,000 new homes for rent a year, built to the highest environmental standards, combating fuel poverty and the housing crisis as well as creating vast numbers of decent, fulfilling jobs.

With local authorities, local cooperatives and the Scottish government aided in funding these projects by a state bank, instead of the current scandal of banks helping BP, Shell and other multinationals desecrate the planet for profit.

Free public transport - would cut poverty, isolation, pollution...and create jobs

Local Workers’ Struggles & Socialist Change

These links between local workers’ struggles and the need for socialist change in how the economy is owned and run in order to tackle the climate crisis need to be discussed and popularised in the run up to the 20 September action, and beyond. 

It would be fatal if the courageous young people who have electrified the awareness of the climate emergency did not get the support of workers, young and older. 

It would be disastrous if the young protestors began to blame older workers for a crisis that has been created by a tiny, fabulously rich minority of the population, through the very nature of capitalist production for profit. 

It's the capitalist minority who plundered and polluted the earth, not older workers. It's not a generational issue, it's a class issue!

It's capitalists - Shell, BP, etc - who pollute, not workers of any age 

Action on 20 September

Achieving a genuine general strike on 20 September is a tall order. And it's a demand that should not be light-mindedly thrown around without thinking through the almighty preparations it would take, at workplace level, especially in the teeth of anti-union laws. 

But that should not prevent trade unions organising for maximum solidarity and participation in some forms of protest - armed with some of the policies described above, to help convince working class people that we can be far, far better off by taking drastic measures to tackle climate change - rather than being asked to pay for a crisis we didn't create, through jobs being slaughtered and services slashed. 

Local union organising meetings are being held to discuss practical protest actions. Workplace meetings should be called to discuss the issues and solutions, as well as action. And the UCU union has proposed a Motion to the TUC Congress in early September, calling for a 30-minute strike to be called by the TUC on 20 September. 

Workers and Young People Unite

Young people have lit a fire underneath the backsides of those in power. Workers are beginning to take action in some areas in their own self-defence, in ways that would and should be linked to expansion of 'green' jobs that would help reverse the tsunami of destruction caused by capitalist ownership and production.

The power of the working class, united with the power of protest by young people demanding a future, needs to be wielded to ensure we have a world to live in.

And socialism - collective, sustainable production for the democratically decided needs of people, not profit - is the increasingly urgent need of the hour.