End of steel making in the North East

[loy PRA]

Terrible day tomorrow, when the process of tapping the salamander (ironic) and subsequent mothballing of the blast furnances brings to an end a half century bastion of industry in teesside and the end of heavy industry in the North East of England.

Over the past 24 months liberties brought about through lack of regulation has seen a banking industry largely at fault for the current economic crisis have seen their folly underwritten by the Treasury, their pensions protected, and (entirely legal) transgressions removed from accountability.

On Teesside, all of the Corus steelworkers will lose their jobs and will face the indignity of not being able to put food on the table and a return largely reminiscent to the miners of '84 to dole queues and employment offices. The Business and Trade Secy, Peter Mandelson, told North East that the closure of the steelworks was 'not a political party question' despite the grandfathers and great grandfathers were founders of the original labour movement. Mandelson will again attend the annual meeting of the Bilderberg group, a collection of the most powerful figures in the financial industry. An industry saved by the precedent of Labour Government with Northern Rock's initial nationalisation.

The Cabinet, currently in Durham City, largely ignored the issue.

Tony Blair removed Clause IV of the Labour Party's constitution which would see the renationalisation of state industry for the good of the majority of employees. East Coast Mainline, HBOS, Lloyds TSB, Northern Rock, etc all had to nationalised as a matter of necessity regardless of clause.

The simple solution is with the money generated into the system by the quantitiative easing method was to buy the steelworks under the premise of resurrecting British Steel Corporation until a buyer could be found or the plant could be streamlined. Question Time, in Middlesbrough tonight, can only muster Roy Hattersley, Lynn Featherstone (MP for Wood Green about as far removed from Boro as you get), The actor Bill Conte and some unctious Tory.

The North East has been badly let down yet again.

[ambersalamander]

I don't see the irony there Loy - I hope that wasn't meant to be a personal slight

That is a terrible situation - goodness knows what the knock-on effects will be. It's very sad that it has come to this.

[frankiegth]

A so called socialist government that has let down so, so many ordinary working class people is disgusting. No doubt they'll hide behind the statement "It's the free market, it's Corus not government". It stinks.

I could really go off on a rant, but to what end? The reason this country (IMHO) is in the sh1t is 'cos we've had 30years of tory rule and new labour have idly stood by as the manufacturing base has continued to be decimated.

I do believe it was necessary to bail out the banks but an opportunity to reign in the greed of the banking sector was missed. I also believe that the same privilege should be afforded to the manufacturing sector be it steel, chocolate, submarines, aero engines whatever.

God I'm so angry, I could spit blood.

[robotsmfc]

I'm not an economist, so I can't really comment on the merits (presuming there are any) of letting the manufacturing industries slowly disappear, but what I will say is that no government ever weighs up the social cost of these things.

Well done, government. That's another community devoid of its major employer, another community damned to another localised private recession, and will any money be invested into rebuilding the employment chances and infrastructure of the area? I'd be very surprised.

[Sultan of Cannock- SRFC]

It is a sad occaision that steel has eventually followed shipbuilding and coal into the dustbin of history. I still have one of my old schoolbooks which taught us about the manufacturing industry of the West Midlands in the 50's- 70's. Little if any survives.

If the local MP for Teeside had her facts right when she said at PMQ's today that the plant had it's order books "80% full with enough work for many years" then this is a rum do indeed, as usually in these cases it's our customers who have taken our jobs away by refusing to buy the stuff we produce. Could it be that Tata are trying to squeeze extra money out of a government which has its backs up agianst the wall of a general election?

Looking back through my own personal memory bank it seems to me that we are still reaping what we have sown over several generations. With our wildcat strikes in the 60's and 70's where the unions always won ( The words of the Strawbs' hit song, "Part of the Union" were pretty much spot on) we helped put the country into a state where it was hard to resist the oil shocks of the mid 70's. IMHO, the Callaghan (Labour) government was a good one which was doing it's best for the country but the Unions kicked it in the teeth through greed and thus exposed us to the full white heat of the Thatcher revolution.

A Callaghan win at the election in 79, with a more cooperative union movement, would probably have given us a softer landing and we would be more like the French now. As it was, people who were fed up of strikes, secondary picketing, closed shops and being bullied at mass meetings gave Maggie three resounding mandates which she used to effectively emasculate the Trade Union movement ( Blair's killing of clause 4 was a largely symbolic move to show Daily Mail readers that New Labour was electable).Thus British workers are now amongst the easiest to sack in the world and an easy target for cost cutting measures.

With the banks and the stock market seemingly having bounced back it makes it all the more galling that the jobs are still vapourising for the rest of us.

[bh]

This is so so depressing. Can you actually buy anything of value that is made in this country anymore.

Talking about the North East, when I was a child I used to visit my Grandparents at a small town/village called Percy Main near North Shields in what is now known as Tyne and Wear.

When we got there after traveling up from London on the train, i was always fascinated by the amount of railways operating in the area close to where my Grandparents lived. There seemed to my young mind almost constant movements of goods trains, and the smell steam trains was always in the air. What I didn't realize at the time was what great industry was going on in the area. Yes I am talking about coal mining. All the movements were coal trains shuttling from the pits.

Another thing I used to enjoy about my trips were visits to the fish quay at North Shields. My grandfather had worked at the quay so knew most of the workers there, and I was allowed access to places members of the public were never allowed, watching the constant flow of fishing craft bring in their catch.

Strangely my other set of Grandparents lived near Southampton. again one of the joys of visiting there were trips to the docks.
In those days the docks were full of various passenger liners and other freighters from around the world. The biggest thrill was visiting the Ocean docks where either one of the great liners Queens Mary or Elizabeth may be berthed.

You might ask what is the point of the little story. Well, there are no mines or railways at Percy Main anymore. The majority of the quays at North Shields have gone the same way. Those magnificent ships, both built in BRITAIN have disappeared along with the majority of the docks at Southampton.

These were the kind of industries which made Britain great, and it is frightening when you think that it has all disappeared into the mists of time.

[loy PRA]

A very pertinent point I brought up and was widely condemned as a Trotskyist/Socialist/Fascist etc..

But it's true. My Grandparents worked in that Rail Stock, part of Gateshad NER (North Eastern Railway), back then Gateshead could boast robust communities centered around varied industries such as Steel, Railway engineering, Shipbuilding, and being historically part of Co. Durham we of course had coal.

That, coupled with massive Hibernian influxes from Ireland and Scotland meant a healthy bonhomie with Social Clubs as stocked with Socialist literature than many finer, better funded libraries, strong trade unions, a productive Co-Operative movement and the assurance now that local councillors and MPs were most definitely on the working man's side.

Barely half a century on, but only can is Gateshead 'liberated' from those industries but the entirety of the North East cannot boast one shipbuilder, one collier, one fettler or one steelmaker. Communities have been destroyed, the town centre is a wasteland and Tesco, a private enterprise that has aggressively grown at the expense of our sole traders, co-operators and local businessmen invites cameras outside the Sportsdirect@St James' Park stadium to show how people will queue around the Gallowgate to work in their yet-to-be-built call centre. The manufactering class dissolve into inequity, drug abuse, and welfare culture deprived of the opportunity heavy industry brought to the region. In addition to this they own through their subsidiary, Spenhill, 95% of the commercial town centre of Gateshead and plan to build a store roughly akin to the size of the Pentagon.

Percy Main once a quaint, unified village as you describe is now an indescribable sh*thole, I play five a side football there and honestly don't feel safe walking around there post match.

[frankiegth]

I work for Rolls Royce, the company are considering selling the business I work for to a czech company because they claim they can do the work at 1/3 the cost. Only thing is, it transpires they cannot actually do the work at all and need to "purchase the workforce" in order to do the work. Not suprisingly the workforce are not prepared to be sold like slaves.