Save jobs, not profit. The SSP on the march in Kilmarnock
Thousands march for Johnnie Walker jobs
by Richie Venton - 27th July 2009
They poured into Howard Park, Kilmarnock, in their thousands on Sunday, despite the monsoon rain and lashing wind that poured down on Ayrshire for hours before.
20,000 of them according to most press reports.
This was the biggest event in Kilmarnock's modern history, certainly
since the town's team won the cup in 1997. But rather than being a carnival
of celebration it was a display of gritty determination to save the Johnnie
Walker's plant from closure.
This is a town of about 50,000 people. The loss of 700 jobs - plus hundreds
of others in the knock-on effect - would wipe out any real future for
the town, which is already festooned by 'To Let' and 'For Sale' signs
outside shops and small businesses. No wonder such an outpouring of working
class solidarity was on display on Sunday.
The entire Kilmarnock
FC team and manager Jim
Jeffries marched with trade
unionists, their families, whole communities, with Johnnie Walker workers
present and past to the fore.
As well as bands, poets and comedians, the rally platform included First
Minister Alex Salmond, local SNP and Labour politicians, and trade union
speakers from UNITE, GMB and two local Johnnie Walker shop stewards Janette
Dunbar and Jim McGhee.
Diageo bosses took a pasting from many of the speakers for their disloyalty
to a loyal workforce and loyal community, who have given Johnnie Walker's
whisky its international fame, status and sales.
Alex Salmond and others emphasised the alternative business plan which
Diageo bosses have promised to look at and discuss, but worryingly Salmond
finished his fiery rhetoric with a lame "we will make sure we get
something for the workforce" - which begs the question whether the
business plan includes big chunks of redundancies rather than saving
every job.
By far the most hard-hitting speech came from UNITE assistant general
secretary Len McLuskey. And significantly, it was also the best received
by the crowd in Kay Park - a clue to the fighting spirits that need to
be harnessed into action if the closures are to be halted.
Lennie declared:
“These are job cuts driven by one thing only: greed. This is a company
drunk on greed. It is making mega-profits - more than £2billion last
year - and wants still more. It is the greed of a chief executive paid
f£5m last year and looking to fund next year’s bonus out of the hides
of working men and women here in Scotland.
“Well, we have news for Diageo and its boardroom. The days of ‘greed
is good’ are over. Unite is not going to accept that these jobs are going
and the communities depending on them will be destroyed.
“And we know, Mr Walsh, that you and your managers have been plotting
this betrayal for months now. While these workers have been delivering
for you day in, day out, you've been scheming how to axe them.
“But if this company thinks they can throw hundreds of decent working
men and women on the dole without a fight to the end, then they have
been partaking of too much of their merchandise.”
"We will discuss the alternative business plan with Diageo, and
hope to persuade them to reverse their decision. But be warned: if they
don't, they will face the fight of their life.
"Our union is already in touch with every Diageo plant in the UK
and Ireland and we are in touch with the unions in the USA, where Johnnie
Walker's is so widely sold. Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters Union has written
to Diageo. If Diageo fail to listen, we will hit them hard not just in
this proud nation, but throughout the UK, Ireland, the USA, where their
sales and their plants operate."
The warm applause for this fighting talk was consistent with the very
warm reception to the leaflet from the Scottish Socialist Party, where
we declared 'Save Workers' Jobs - not Billionaires' Profits'. We repeated
the same stark, simple message on the hundreds of SSP placards grabbed
by marchers: 'Save Jobs - not Profits'.
And speaking to a large number of Johnnie Walker workers, I found they hold the same basic views of the situation as the SSP.
"Profits,
greed, making even more money for themselves" were the replies I
got from every single worker when I asked them what they thought was
behind the closures.
They also agreed with the SSP's blunt message that the government should
not give a penny in subsidies to bribe this mulit-billioned multi-national
into saving the jobs. As one woman put it to me: "I would be livid
if that government [pointing towards Alex Salmond} gave a cent to these
people. They don't need it or deserve it. Small businesses need help,
but not Diageo."
Our call for the government to seize Diageo's assets and bring them into
public ownership to save every job - instead of subsidising Diageo's
super-profits from public funds - was well received in conversations
with the workers who face a life of misery on £65 a week if this fight
isn't won.
And Johnnie Walker workers I spoke to also endorsed our message that
a plan of decisive action will now need to be considered if the monumental
public support is not to be ignored by Diageo.
UNITE's Len McLuskey pointed in the right direction with his speech.
If Diageo dig in, buttressed by their billions of profit, industrial
action is the most powerful weapon workers have, which could be powerfully
aided by a call for a consumer boycott until they cave in.
Sunday's march through Kilmarnock was a magnificent event, one of the
biggest demos of workers in any part of Scotland for years. It will have
boosted the morale of Johnnie Walker's workers, who even on Sunday were
getting the kind of treatment from Diageo that has become common as they
plot closures. Workers on the Sunday shift were warned against coming
out to the demo as it marched past the plant, and they told us their
lunchtime was changed to 11.30am to try and prevent them seeing the mass
movement behind their fight! To no avail; a crowd of them came out and
cheered the marchers on at the gate of the factory, celebrating the strength
of unity and working class solidarity.
The roaring success of Sunday now needs to be built on with a plan of action to save every job from the butchers in the boardroom.