UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS SET TO WORSEN AS BRITAIN’S RICHEST MAN PUTS CAR PLANT ON HOLD
WELSH GOVERNMENT’S INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY FAILS AS MILLIONS IS HANDED OVER TO GLOBAL BUSINESS WHILST COMMUNITIES GROW POORER
UNITE COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: BILLIONAIRES LIKE RATCLIFFE “SHOULD BE PENALISED FOR TAKING THE PISS.”
By SC Cook
Workers in Bridgend face the prospect of further joblessness and poverty after the billionaire boss of Ineos, Jim Ratcliffe, suspended preparations for a car factory in the area.
The news was announced on Tuesday that Ratcliffe – Britain’s richest man – was now looking to acquire an alternative site from Mercedes-Benz on the French / German border in Moselle.
Last year, one Ineos boss close to the plans, Tom Crotty, said there would be “up to 500” skilled jobs at the Bridgend factory. Welsh Government also said they were in talks with two Wales-based component supply companies to support the car plant.
But hundreds of potential jobs could now be lost at a time when 1,700 workers are set to be made redundant from the Ford factory in Bridgend when it shuts this autumn. Peter Hughes, Unite Wales Secretary said withdrawing from Bridgend would “be seen as a betrayal” by people.
On top of the Ineos announcement, thousands of workers in Wales could be thrown on the scrapheap as the Covid crisis unfolds. Last week, it was announced that Airbus was axing 1,700 UK jobs. Its Broughton site in North Wales employs around 6,000 people. The crisis is international. As well as putting its Bridgend site on hold, Ineos is also putting around 500 jobs in Portugal in doubt as part of the same strategy, which would see both sites moved to Moselle.
The situation is a painful example of how livelihoods can be ruined in an instant when left to the whims of the market and profiteering bosses. But Welsh government also has serious questions to answer for an industrial strategy that has seen it throw massive sums of public money at huge global companies for barely anything in return.
Last year, Labour economy minister Ken Skates gave an upfront cash grant to Ineos that was rumoured to be around £10 -13million, as a way of trying to lure the company to Wales. On Tuesday, Skates said that £4million had already been spent ‘to date.’
Ineos’ 4X4 ‘Grenadier’ model – the vehicle that was due to be built in Bridgend – also received money from the UK government under competition funding which was aimed at zero-emission vehicles. It later transpired, however, that the Grenadier wouldn’t be eco friendly.
Now Ratcliffe is set to walk away as a more lucrative site becomes available, leaving Bridgend facing a future of further unemployment.
In response, Welsh Government were left making helpless appeals to Ratcliffe’s better nature, a man notorious for union busting and ruthlessness when it comes to making himself money.
“I have told the CEO that abandoning Bridgend at this late stage, after so much effort and money has been invested in preparing the site, would be a terrible decision for Wales and the UK,” said a desperate Ken Skates.
He said Welsh government had “impressed on the company in no uncertain terms the importance of honouring its commitment to Wales…”
It was unclear if Skates had spoken to Ratcliffe directly or simply written him an email begging him to stay. The billionaire is unlikely to be bothered, having already witnessed a cash-strapped Welsh Government outspend the UK government in its desperation to get him to invest.
On the money, the administration in Cardiff have said they would look to recoup costs if Ratcliffe pulls out, but how or when is unclear.
What is certain, however, is that the money would have been better invested elsewhere. Bridgend council, for example, has made a staggering £68m in cuts in the last ten years, decimating jobs and services. Many people are struggling to survive.
Sue Leader is the secretary of the Unite Community branch in Cardiff, who’s members are unemployed, and has campaigned over the issue of joblessness and poverty in Bridgend before.
“Coming on the back on the back of Fords as well, I don’t know what’s gonna happen to the Bridgend area,” she told voice.wales.
“It will tip the economy over the edge. We’ve had such an explosion of people being made redundant and seeking Universal Credit…It’s something we’ve never had to face before on this scale. Maybe the miners [is comparable]”
Sue said that there were generations of people from South Wales who grew up in the shadow of the pit closures who have had to live “hand to mouth” throughout their lives. The effects of this new wave of unemployment could be catastrophic.
“I think really we have to keep an eye on the suicide rate, you know, male suicide.”
“What we see when we go to Bridgend,” she told us, “is a lot of people on disability, a lot of people on benefits and a lot of people who have been on benefits for a long time,”
“And their debt is unsustainable. They’re not being frivolous, they’re just living hand to mouth.”
Sue said that billionaires like Ratcliffe “should be penalised for taking the piss” and that it was made easy for them to abuse a system where they are given state assistance to build but in “the first sign of trouble, they’re gone.”
The question now arises of what can be done in response when we are in the grip of a global pandemic.
“In this climate we would love to be organising a load of protests, but to keep within the rule of Covid it’s virtually impossible,” Sue explained. “In the past we would have been down in Bridgend in big numbers, handing out leaflets, giving advice on benefits, asking people if they’re in a union.”
The situation is unsustainable, she said, acknowledging that doing nothing also has huge consequences. “You can have as many zoom meetings as you like, but then you don’t reach the people who aren’t online.”
The union branch – which tries to organise among the unemployed and low waged – has decided to resume stalls and even talked about having 2 metre stretches of rope that people could hold on marches to maintain distancing.
There is a growing feeling that something has to be done, however. The situation with Ford, Ineos and Airbus could just be the beginning. An unemployment and poverty crisis – already upon us after a decade of austerity- is set to get worse.
The measures put forward by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the Summer statement, however, are similar to the industrial strategy of Welsh Government, which has already failed. It involves throwing money at the system and telling people that it will fix itself.
The ultimate beneficiaries are the very richest, who already have obscene levels of wealth. Whilst the owners of Wagamamas get a huge tax break, unemployed people in Bridgend face the resumption of benefit sanctions.
And as long as people like Jim Ratcliffe are lauded as job creating entrepreneurs, instead of being seen as parasitic influences in places like South Wales, we will forever keep coming back here.
Cover image via http://www.powerinaunion.co.uk/united-auto-workers-set-to-organise-car-plants/
