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26 June 1997 Edition

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Workers in struggle

Derry jobs disaster




    
UTA closures will have ``disastrous consequences for the local economy''

``We regret the necessity of this decision, but please be assured that the Company will work diligently to make the transition as co-ordinated and equitable as possible''.

This is one way to tell the communities that make up the Creggan, Bogside and Brandywell that their local economy has been consigned to the scrapheap. It is how United Technologies, the one industrial employer in the area, announced its decision to close its automobile components factory with the loss of almost 600 jobs. Less than a year ago there were over 1,000 people working at the United Technologies plant.

The closure of United Technologies will result in over £6 million been sucked out of the local economy annually in lost wages. Sinn Féin Cityside councillor Cathal Crumley told An Phoblacht that the closure will ``create a major vacuum in the economy of the city''.

This he says will exacerbate ``the problems which already exist as a result of the systematic rundown of the area's economic infrastructure. It is encumbent on us all to explore every avenue possible to forestall this closure''.

The proposed shutdown puts huge pressure on an already severely disadvantaged local economy. Recent surveys have shown that the Creggan, Brandywell and Bogside wards endure the highest levels of poverty, ill-health and unemployment in the Six Counties. Councillor Crumley pointed out to that this area has been ``consistently ignored by the statutory bodies and the administrators of international funding. It can little afford such a devastating blow''.

The closure announcement is made more bitter by the fact that it came only a day after workers were awarded a QS 900 award for the quality of their work at United Technologies. So why is the plant closing at all?

``Ever increasing pressures on prices,'' is the management excuse. They did however find the funds to hire a public relations firms to handle publicity surrounding the plant closure.

A spokesperson from the PR firm, GCAS, told An Phoblacht that the parent company in the US was transferring the work done at the Derry factory to plants in Spain and Portugal. United also has plants in Hungary.

The closure and transfer of work to foreign plants is a very similar story to that of Packard in Dublin. Packard produced components for Opel, Vauxhall and General Motors cars. United Technologies produces similar parts for Citroen and Ford cars. Packard also transferred its work to foreign plants. It played off one factory and one workforce against another. In the end the Irish workers lost out. It seems as though the same fate has hit the workers at United Technologies.

The issues that need to be addressed now are whether the plant can be saved and what can be done to ensure that transnational companies work with the local communities that host them, not against them.

It seems unlikely that the United Technologies jobs can be saved but that does not mean that the Northern Ireland Office and its agencies cannot learn from this experience. They could take note of the comments from a spokesperson for the Bogside and Brandywell Initiative who said that the decision by United Technologies showed that ``No lessons had been learnt by the company over the past two years'' and that the announcement displayed ``a total absence of any attempt to be democratically accountable to the workers in the plant and the local communities.

``Decisions such as today's must not be repeated. They exemplify the absolute imperative of industrialists and employers working in co-operation and partnership with Derry workers.''


Downside of the American dream



     
They keep telling us how successful their system is. Then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night

There are two sides to most stories and last week's Group of Seven (G7) summit in Denver Colorado was no different. The G7 summit is an annual meeting of the leaders of the seven largest industrial economies in the world. Its members include the USA, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and Britain.

The leaders of these states meet annually to discuss what they deem are the world's most threatening economic problems and agree or not, as the case may be, to a collective course of action. At last week's summit hosted by US President Bill Clinton the G7 leaders could not agree on adopting explicit targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

They did agree on some bland toothless pronouncements such as the need to improve job creation and opposing economic exclusion as well as calling for better implementation of the Bosnian peace agreement. They also enlarged the G7 to include Russia making it the G8, even the though the EU is represented at the discussions by the EU Commission President Jacques Santer, making it in reality the G18.

The real meat of the summit was that the US hosts were seeking formal recognition of what they perceive as their economic successes of recent years. They have a low inflation, low unemployment, high growth economy and they wanted the applause of other leaders.

President Clinton told the other leaders that they could learn from not only the ``Anglo Saxon approach'' but also from his ``Clintonomics''.

However, one official of a European government summed up the big picture of the American Economic miracle when he or she told the Financial Times ``They keep telling us how successful their system is. Then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night''. Enough said really.

 


Fair wage or a millennium time bomb?



The ink was barely dry on the new Progressive Democrat/Fianna Fáil Action Programme when the Small Firms Association (SFA) were into the fray attacking the plan's proposals to introduce a ``national minimum hourly wage''. SFA director Brendan Butler described the proposal as ``off the wall'' claiming that ``a minimum wage would fly in the face of reality''.

An Phoblacht contacted the SFA and asked Mr Butler why he was opposed to the introduction of a national minimum wage. Butler said it would ``price certain jobs out of the market''. It would have a ``negative effect on competitiveness'' with a spate of follow-on claims. A minimum wage is ``unnecessary because there already is an established system of statutory minimum wage'' levels in some industries. It would ``not help those out of work'' and finally a minimum wage is a ``crude and indiscriminate mechanism''.

``Let's finds a mechanism that can take account of variations across industries and regions,'' said Butler. We pointed out that the existing Joint Labour Commission on Wages in the hotel and catering sector was currently unable to agree a new minimum wage level leading to a situation where workers were earning as little as £2 an hour. He was ``not familiar'' with this case.

The question was put as to whether employers could deliberately maintain wages below a competitive level and he did admit that ``there is expolitation in the black economy and it should be tackled''. Mr Butler claimed that his members had unfilled vacancies where wages varied from £3.50 to £5 an hour. The problem, he argued, was one of tax and social insurance payments.

Perhaps most interesting was Mr Butler's final comment. When asked about a minimum hourly wage of over £4, he scoffed and desribed this as ``German wage levels''. For the record, an hourly wage of say £4.50 amounts to £180 for a 40 hour week and £9360 annually. On a weekly basis these ``German wages'' would leave an Irish worker earning £130 less than the average industrial wage for male workers in the 26 Counties.

An Phoblacht
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