Defend every job

By Eamonn McCann

Every worker in the North should draw the same lesson----The
only way to save jobs is to resist every job loss.

The media tell us nothing can be done about closures and
cutbacks. But fighting your corner is never futile. Workers never got anything
without fighting for it.

North, South and across the water, job losses are hitting
like hammer-blows. Many workers are left groggy, not knowing what workplace
will be whacked next. But struggles like the Visteon occupation lift the
spirits up.

This is the main reason all trade unionists and activists
should rally round the workers in the west Belfast plant. Not just to give them
support, but to spread the message of militancy: that it makes sense to take a
stand.

In many workplaces and working class areas, the mood is a
mixture of anger and fear. Feelings swing between a readiness to fight back and
a tendency to keep the head down. Which of these feelings comes to the fore
depends on the leadership that’s given, on what examples there are to be
followed.

Commenting on a thousand jobs going down the drain at
Bombardier, Peter Robinson told the BBC that he and the Executive felt
“helpless”.

Meanwhile, Gerry Adams was pleading with Ford to accept it
had a “duty of care” to the Visteon workers---as if a cut-throat capitalist
company in the US might show soft-hearted concern for workers in Belfast.

Whether it’s Visteon, Bombardier, Wrights in Ballymena, FG
Wilson in Newtownabbey, or Calcast in Derry, the only language from workers that
gets through to bosses is the language of industrial militancy. Where there’s
no fight, there’s nothing won.

Fighting leadership comes largely from below, from those who
have no compunction about taking on the system. It isn’t just a matter of
winning decent redundancy terms---although we have to fight all the way for
that, too. It’s about stopping the destruction of jobs.

The Visteon plant holds machinery worth millions, which
could be used to make any number of products. The workers should push for
replacement jobs. They shouldn’t allow a washer to leave the factory until they
have a satisfactory deal.

Workers across Ireland and beyond should be organising
support any way that they can.