Unite For Jobs - Morning Star article.

Tomorrow is too late
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley

The fight to save jobs has begun. Unite will be leading thousands of trade unionists through the streets of Birmingham this week to demand real government action to save industry now.

Our philosophy is simple - workers should not have to foot the bill for the bankers' blunders.

Ministers have started to move, but so far very little has been accomplished. Unless this changes, it will soon be too late for hundreds of workplaces and thousands of jobs.

Extending a loan to Birmingham van-maker LDV, so that 900 skilled workers would get a chance to fight for their future, cost just £4m. This is the kind of figure that our bailed-out bankers used to pocket as a bonus.

That modest investment also brought hope to thousands more workers in the beleaguered motor industry supply chain.

Once scrapped, those skilled jobs would never have come back. The prospects for a genuinely green van-maker, producing the first hybrid vans in Europe, would have vanished alongside them.

But our struggle to secure this support was more painful than it should have been.

When action is needed to save manufacturing and the jobs and skills that depend on it, the government machine is too often far too slow in translating pledges into deeds.

LDV is not yet out of the woods. Jobs at Ellesmere Port and Luton are under threat from the imminent bankruptcy of General Motors in the US. And last week, 2,000 people on Teesside were told that their work at Corus would soon be gone.

LDV can be saved because there is a serious and interested buyer for this company, which will keep jobs in Britain.

But LDV's problems are only the tip of the iceberg. Across all industries - but particularly in manufacturing - jobs are under threat.

Manufacturing is paying the price for a crisis brought on by the bankers in the City. That is why we are marching through Birmingham on Saturday, and why we will be joined by thousands from across the country who share our fear that unless the government acts soon, our skills base will evaporate.

Also, as the job losses and home repossessions mount up, confidence in the economy will fail to return.

Measures we want to see taken include subsidised short-time working for companies in trouble. This will prevent them laying off employees and closing plants which we know will never reopen.

We also need more financial help for manufacturing and action to get the credit flowing from the banks again. We've put enough cash into the banks over the last six months. It is past time to see some of it coming out again, in loans to industry.

If taxpayers' money can be used to bail out the banks, it should also be available to help vital industries through the recession.

It makes more sense than paying workers to sit on the dole for months to come.

Our members are backing the short-time working subsidy, and they won't be alone because it is the logical thing to do.

A snap poll of 2500 Unite members revealed that nearly nine in every 10 want the government to do more to keep people in work during the recession.

A further 86 per cent support a government fund to help skilled workers stay in their jobs.

It wasn't just manufacturing workers who called for this. Workers in finance, IT and transport all insisted that jobs should be a top priority.

We found that 68 per cent of Unite members knew someone who had recently lost their job because of the recession, while 77 per cent worried about the security of their own jobs.

The polling figures are a strong message to Labour that it can and must do more to win the support of working families.

We are calling on Unite members from all parts of the country to join the demonstration and urge the government to put concrete aid for the industry at the top of the agenda. And of course, we welcome the support of trade unionists from other unions. You can all join us on Saturday.

Birmingham on May 16 is a chance to give ministers a united message - act now to save industry. Tomorrow could be too late.

Filling the streets of Birmingham on May 16 is the least we can do for the employees of LDV, Visteon, Corus and United Biscuits and for the workers in our high street shops, banks, schools and hospitals.

We will be standing shoulder to shoulder with workers who are staring redundancy in the face through no fault of their own.

Please join us - and stand up for our future as a manufacturing country, and for the jobs and talents of our workers.

For more information on the March for Jobs visit actionunitetheunion.com