The following interview is an edited version of one obtained by a Red Mole correspondent with John Brown, representing the Shop Stewards Committee, UCS, Govan Division.
-Could you give us some idea of the composition of the labour force and of trade union membership within UCS?
There are thirteen unions in UCS. The largest one as far as membership is concerned is my own union, the Boilermakers Society, which organises roughly one-third of the labour force. There are eight trades within the Boilermakers' alone.
The other important unions are the Engineers, DATA (the Draughtsmen's Union) is involved with them as a separate unit within the union, the GMWU (General and Municipal Workers' Union) which organises the labourers and general workers, the ASW (Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers), PTU-ETU (Plumbers and Electricians). All these unions have a big representation within the consortium. You have somewhere between 7½ and 8½ thousand workers within the UCS at the moment, and that is after a cutback of 25% in the labour force over a twelve month period.
-Do you think the Tory policy of unemployment and union bashing has affected the militancy of the UCS No, I think it is quite safe to say that the militancy of all workers in Britain has not been headed off in any way. Here we tend to mirror what is going on in the rest of the country. As a labour force we are more organised than most, being shipyard workers and particularly in Scotland the shipyard workers and miners have historically been the king pin of any action taken by the working class in Britain. We are well organised, and as far as the fight against the Bill is concerned, we helped lead the demonstrations on Clydeside.
—What do you think are the main problems in UCS? Capital investment. It's a case of pure bloody-minded governmental sabotage for reasons that only they can understand. They give us a certain amount of money-the Labour government under pressure had to stand back and say, "Right, we'll give you so much, now prove yourselves. Once that's done we'll give you £5 or £6 million more." So, what happened? The Tories came in, took the money out of the kitty and we don't get it any more. The point is that where any government in the world has any shipbuilding or seagoing industry, they subsidise it. The Labour government set up a fund to build ships to the tune of £100 million. This wasn't a direct cash flow to the yards as suchit was on a credit basis to the shipowners. The Tories came in and they froze that sum at around £30 million so our first crisis was that half the orders on our books had been taken on on the basis of that scheme and we started to lose these. —Do you think that if the Tories had given UCS £6 million this would have kept it running?
It would have kept it running meantime but I personally don't think it's enough because we're desperately needing money for capital equipment. As far as I'm concerned, the only way the government can put in money of that kind is through nationalisation. This is where the Labour government went wrong. —What are the likely repercussions of the closure of the yards? 80% of the cost of the ship is brought in in component parts-e.g. machinery, lightbulbs, harnesses, carpets, anchors, etc. Many firms, especially in the West of Scotland, work for shipbuilding-maybe 20% or 30% of their output is for the yards. Take that off and they too become nonviable. There's only 7,500 of us but we reckon it's a modest estimate to say there are in effect 30,000 shipyard workers in Scotland. Shopkeepers in Govan have got notices up in the windows saying, "If UCS closes, we close"-that's genuine, they mean it. To build ships in themselves is uneconomic, to sail ships is uneconomic but without the ships getting built and without the ships sailing the whole economy grinds to a halt.
CLYDESIDE
A CHALLENGE TO ALL THE WORKING CLASS PROTEST