Sacked by rumour and left to rot

By Bernard Thompson

Published in the Scottish Socialist Voice, January 2003  

When John Howard took his dog for a walk on January 7, life was pretty good.

He had enjoyed his Christmas break from Fullarton's, where he had worked for nine years, and was looking forward to returning to work the following day.

By the time he got home, however, a chance acquaintance had relayed the crushing news that he had no job to go back to.

Sure enough, the next day a letter arrived telling John not to return.

Like most of John's 500 fellow workers, he had lived with the threat of closure for much of his time at Fullarton's.

But nothing prepared him for the shock of the callous manner in which he was discarded from the facility, which was taken over by Sanmina last year.

However, more pressing practical matters are now uppermost in his mind.

"If I don't get another job straight away, my wife and I could lose our house," John revealed. "But that will be very hard around here. The closure will be devastating to this area."

John's concerns were echoed by SSP Workplace Organiser, Richie Venton, who reacted to the goings on at Fullarton's with fury: "What the company did is criminal," Richie said.

"It's a bloody disgrace that this multinational has declared war on an area of existing multiple deprivation. They seem to be hell-bent on turning the area into a ghost town.

Just as perplexing is the bewildering surrender of John's union, the ISTC. Although still a loyal member, John asks: "Why was there no fight to save our jobs?"

That is a question that the SSP is also asking. A staunch supporter of the local workforce and community, Richie was scathing of the ISTC, which let down the Fullarton's workforce at their hour of greatest need.

"It is shameful that the ISTC leadership did not organise action to stop these industrial vandals," said Richie.

"A local demonstration in the town would have attracted thousands and might have pressurised the Scottish Executive into taking the plant into public hands."

But Richie is also concerned for IBM workers in Greenock who were threatened with redundancy only to be "saved" at the eleventh hour:

"We share the relief that the IBM jobs are not lost - for now. But how secure can they be now that the same Sanmina that has laid off the Fullarton's workers has taken over the IBM workforce?"

"Sanmina are notoriously anti-union - as are IBM. I believe that partly explains why the trade unionised plant was shut down."

Richie went on to pour scorn on the empty promises of successive governments: "We were told for years that, after the closure of the shipyards, the electronics industry was the bright shining future.

"Now these multinational gangsters have siphoned off grants to buy richer pastures to exploit. This whole episode only highlights the outrageous nonsense of inward investment, which Labour and the SNP espouse."

Richie is clear that only one solution can protect Scottish jobs in the face of exploitation by multi-nationals: "The whole nightmare of uncertainty for the electronics industry highlights the need for public ownership and an independent socialist Scotland that will resist the globetrotting profiteers of big business."