Anglesey in crisis

Taken from Proper Tidy (http://wrexhamsocialist.blogspot.com/2009/08/anglesey-in-crisis.html) - I hope to do a post about the trials and tribulations of Anglesey County Council at some point soon

You may recall that I have written previously about Anglesey Aluminium, here.

On Thursday of this week, it was inevitably confirmed that a further 250 jobs would go as of September 30th, leaving a workforce of just eighty at the plant. At the turn of the year, Anglesey Aluminium employed 540 workers.

I could, at this stage, point out that Anglesey Aluminium are owned by a hugely profitable parent company; that Anglesey will be left decimated by the closure of one of the largest employers in the region; that Rio Tinto declined a public money grant of nearly £50 million in compensation for the loss of cheap energy from Wylfa; that consent was granted for the new Wylfa B nuclear power plant on the basis that it would preserve jobs at Anglesey Aluminium; and that this is a clear strategy of Rio Tinto’s to use the cover of recession to switch production to low wage economies, irrespective of the vast profits their existing plant has created for them and the devastating effect the closure will have on the island. But I have already covered this, previously, and there seems little point in going over old ground.

I should, perhaps, point out that the closure of Anglesey Aluminium will also have a significant knock on effect for what little industry is left on Anglesey; that many more workers are indirectly reliant upon Anglesey Aluminium.

David Hughes, operations manager at hauliers LE Jones in Ruthin, told the Daily Post: “A loss of a major factory like this is a major blow for the haulage industry in North Wales and it will impact on our company.

“They were one of our biggest customers and this will affect us. We don’t know how badly yet but it will impact.”

Another firm affected by the impending closure is Grays Engineering, which carries out welding work for the company. They employ 17 people.

Spokeswoman Karen Lewis said: “Workers are already on short time and this will put jobs under threat. We are very low here today and very concerned.

“They are our biggest customer and we have worked for them for 20 years.”

Graham Rogers, North West Wales regional organiser for Unite, said there was great anger at the plant.

“There is dismay, disappointment and anger at the decision. There is a feeling from workers they have been strung along through this and then let down at the end.

“The impact on the community is massive. It will impact on all types of businesses from shops to garages. In the long term you could quadruple the jobs that will be lost.”

Former Anglesey Aluminium worker Jeff Evans, now manager at the JE O’Toole Centre for the unemployed in Holyhead, said: “The impact on the Holyhead and Anglesey is devastating, it is a huge blow. The workers and the whole community has been left in the mire by the company. They have made vast profits over 40 years from this loyal workforce, they could have accepted some temporary losses over this recession but have showed that profits come before people.”

I’ve not got much more to add to the above, other than to say that this is a clear example of the callousness and greed not only tolerated but encouraged by neo-liberal capitalism. The workers of Anglesey Aluminium and the people of Anglesey have been let down; by big business; by the Welsh Assembly Government; by local New Labour mouthpiece Albert Owen; by the system. This is an island with a highly skilled workforce but with one of the lowest average wages in the UK. Unemployment is well above the national average, and those lucky enough to be in work are often employed in seasonal trades, such as agriculture and tourism, or in unskilled and poorly paid sectors such as retail and low-end production. That the people of Anglesey will now have to cope with the loss of such a key employer is nothing short of a tragedy, and the self-serving greed of Rio Tinto and Kaiser Aluminium, combined with the ineptitude, incompetence, and indifference of the WAG and Albert Owen MP is an insult to the workers of West Wales and beyond.

North Wales suffers in Race to the Bottom

From Socialist Party Wales website -original with references can be read http://www.socialistpartywales.org.uk/front5.html. Photo is of Anglesey Aluminium.

Dylan Roberts (Socialist Party, North Wales)

Historically, the economy of the north west of Wales has been based upon agriculture and tourism; the economy of the north east of Wales upon heavy industry and manufacturing. However, over the past few decades, we have witnessed the death of heavy industry, and an agricultural sector decimated by the globalisation of food consumption. In both west and east we have watched as steelworks, collieries, quarries, and agricultural smallholdings have disappeared, to be replaced by unskilled manufacturing and service sector jobs which are inherently low paid and insecure.

The end result is that North Wales is one of the most highly skilled yet poorly paid regions of the UK, and which has witnessed rapidly increasing unemployment in recent times. According to the 2008 figures from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) report from the Office of National Statistics, the average annual wage in Wales is around 13% lower than the equivalent wage for across the UK, with the UK average wage sitting at £25,123 per annum in 2008, compared to £21,831 per annum for Wales. The reality in north Wales is likely to be even lower again. (1)

North Wales has been heavily hit by the capitalist crisis in 2009. We have already witnessed the loss of a vast number of jobs in the region, with major employers such as JCB, Indesit, Deep Stream Technologies, Corus, Marshalls Cement, and many others, either laying off staff or closing altogether. Many other employers have frozen pay, reduced working hours, terminated the contracts of temporary and fixed term workers, or are threatening to take such measures in the near future. In the past month we have seen a number of key employers undertake job cuts or site closures in both the west and the east of the region.

Air Products

On June 30th, Air Products, an American owned multinational, announced their site in Acrefair, Wrexham, would close, with the loss of around 200 jobs. Air Products are switching production to China. While the loss of 200 jobs in a relatively under populated area is reason enough to be concerned, the Air Products case is worthy of further comment for a number of reasons. Air Products’ Acrefair plant opened in 1950, at a time when the bulk of the workers of Wrexham were employed in heavy industry. However, in the modern day, Air Products was one of very few remaining employers of skilled manual labour in the area. The fact is that the skilled workers at Air Products will struggle to find similar work anywhere within this region. This means they will potentially face a long period of unemployment, and when they do find employment it is likely to be low paid and insecure work within unskilled manufacturing or the service sector. The alternative is, like many before them, to leave the region.

But why is Air Products closing their site? Well, naturally management blamed the recession, citing a drop in profits in the first quarter of 2009 and “on-going cost pressures and the changing demand for our products, which is shifting to other parts of the world, notably Asia". (2) Yet Air Products are not struggling, and neither was the Acrefair plant unprofitable, as management conceded at the beginning of the consultation period in April. Indeed, in 2008 they recorded a global turnover of £11 billion pounds, with profits of nearly £1 billion. Whilst they have seen a downturn in profits in comparison to previous years, it is nonetheless evident that they remain extremely profitable.Indeed, in the first quarter of this year they turned a profit of US $189 million, which equated to more than US $60 million a month, or in even starker terms, more than US $2 million a day. Less profit than they were used to perhaps but hardly a struggling company. (3)

What they are doing is using the cover of the recession to move production to where labour costs are lower, in order to squeeze the profit margin some more. Janet Ryder, Plaid Cymru AM for north Wales, described it as a "betrayal" of a workforce that had been "consistently profitable" for Air Products. (4)

Air Products had announced a consultation period in April, which of course meant that the decision had already been made. The workforce and Unite had put forward an alternative strategy that would have saved jobs and kept the plant alive, whilst conceding to some of Air Products' demands. Whilst offering concessions – job cuts – isn’t necessarily the right path to take, nonetheless this would have preserved some jobs and retained a much needed employer of skilled labour in the area. Air Products, however, were not interested.

As unpalatable as this is, it might not be quite so devastating if it was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, it is anything but.

Anglesey Aluminium

Anglesey Aluminium is, along with the Wylfa nuclear power plant, a major employer on the Isle of Anglesey, and in fact one of the largest employers in north Wales. It is estimated that the firm amounts to around a third of the entire economy of the isle of Anglesey. (5)

Anglesey Aluminium, a joint venture between Rio Tinto (who own 51% of shares) and Kaiser Aluminium (49%) announced in early July that they would be offering voluntary redundancy to 140 workers, with the remaining jobs almost certain to go in September when the plant ceases production. Anglesey Aluminium intends to retain only 80 workers from the 500+ strong workforce. The effect that the closure of Anglesey Aluminium will have on the island cannot be emphasised strongly enough. The north west of Wales is an overwhelmingly rural area with an over reliance on tourism, and the loss of such a significant employer will have long term consequences for many generations of workers on the island.

The plant is closing due to the end of a contract for cheap energy supply with Wylfa, with management citing this as the primary motivation for the closure. The only way the 400 jobs due to go in September could be preserved is if Anglesey Aluminium obtains another source of subsidised energy, which seems highly unlikely.

The closure of Anglesey Aluminium had been on the cards for some time. The closure of Wylfa was announced back in 2006, with the nuclear plant expected to close in 2010. However, earlier this year the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) announced that they may extend the lifetime of the existing Wylfa plant (Wylfa A), with a second nuclear plant (Wylfa B) having been proposed back in 2006. One of the reasons given back in 2006 for the creation of Wylfa B was for the need to continue the supply of energy to Anglesey Aluminium, although this would no longer be at the reduced rate.

The proposal for the second generation nuclear plant, Wylfa B, was voted through by Anglesey County Council, following a propaganda drive by the council and local Labour MP Albert Owen, who heralded the proposal for Wylfa B as a boon for the island and claimed that 1,500 jobs would be at stake if Wylfa B didn’t go ahead.

Iain Dalton, of the Socialist Party Bangor branch, has written previously about Wylfa. On 6th February 2006, Iain noted that:

“They claim that without it, the island will lose 1,500 jobs. This figure has been inflated by Wylfa taking on temporary workers, and by including 400 jobs at Anglesey Aluminium, which the company has publicly stated will not be threatened by closure of Wylfa, although they may use it as a pretext to move production to a lower wage economy. However, a new nuclear station would employ far fewer people than the current station due to new technologies, and that is before cost-cutting practices of the new station's private owners (Wylfa is presently publicly run).” (6)

Indeed, Iain’s words have been borne out. Despite the claims of Albert Owen and Anglesey CC, the fact that the proposal for Wylfa B has been given the go ahead has not prevented Anglesey Aluminium from using the end of the discounted energy supply as an excuse to close the plant, with Rio Tinto and Kaiser Aluminium exploiting the situation in order to switch production to cheaper labour markets.

The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG), in conjunction with Westminster, offered a financial package of £59 million over four years to compensate for the loss of the discounted energy supply, which amounted to an astounding £1 million a month state subsidy. 7

However, management at Anglesey Aluminium, Rio Tinto, and Kaiser Aluminium rejected the deal, claiming that they would need at least double that figure in state subsidies to retain production on Anglesey. Yet Anglesey Aluminium has been extremely profitable in the 36 years it has been on the island. Furthermore, both Rio Tinto and Kaiser Aluminium are vast multinationals turning huge profits.

Rio Tinto, which owns the controlling stake, recorded record profits in 2008, delivering net profits in the first quarter of 2008 of an astronomical US $2.94 billion. They have not faired quite so well in the first quarter of 2009 but that still equates to US $1.6 billion in net profits between January 1st 2009 and March 31st 2009 – or US $177 million per day! 8

Yet again, we see private enterprise demanding that the losses are nationalised while the profits remain private.

As with Air Products, it is evident that the crisis of capitalism and rising production costs are being used as a scapegoat, for attacks on pay and conditions and the switching of production to non-unionised plants in low wage economies, in order to drive these obscene profit margins up yet further. In both cases, there is no pressing need to switch production; it is simply another case of profits coming before people.

As Iain pointed out, and as has been borne out by the impending closure of Anglesey Aluminium, the claim that a new second-generation nuclear facility on Anglesey would not only retain existing jobs but also create new jobs has been proven to be false. As Iain pointed out in the same article:

“Local campaign group Pawb (People Against Wylfa B – Pawb means ‘everybody’ in Welsh) are arguing for an alternative employment plan for the island. Much of this lies around the potential for harnessing renewable energy sources, as the island has near ideal conditions for several technologies including tidal, wind, solar and wave. Additionally, based on the experience of decommissioning Trawsfnydd in nearby Gwynedd, decommissioning the current Wylfa station will provide at least 500 jobs for at least fifteen years.”( 9)

Local politicians such as Albert Owen have argued that building a renewable energy plant on the island would not have been viable, as such a project would take many years, and would therefore leave the skilled workers of Wylfa and Anglesey Aluminium without employment. Yet as Iain points out above, decommissioning the existing Wylfa A plant would have provided significant employment for the next decade and a half, and a new renewable energy plant would have created both long term employment for the people of Anglesey, and shorter term employment as the plant would need to be built. Instead, it appears that Anglesey will retain a nuclear power plant, with all the inherent environmental dangers and impact that come with that, but will still suffer from mass job losses as Anglesey Aluminium ceases production and Wylfa inevitably cut jobs due to new technologies.

The ideal opportunity for a clean, green, environmentally sound mass source of renewable energy has been missed, in addition to the vast number of jobs in the beleaguered construction industry that could have been created by building such a plant.

We can also see further evidence of the short-termist attitude to the construction sector elsewhere in north Wales.

Hanson Cement

Hanson Cement – formerly Castle Cement – in Padeswood, near Buckley, Flintshire (north east Wales) announced on Tuesday 7th July that they had entered a 90-day consultation period, with a view to 96 redundancies. 56 production jobs and a further 37 in distribution are under threat, which would leave only a skeleton staff of 46 at the plant. This is despite promises made by Hanson that there would be secure work for 110 workers. The plant is home to the most modern cement kiln in Europe. (10) Job losses at the plant in Flintshire have been on the cards for some time, with Hanson prepping the turf back in 2008. (11) The threatened job losses have been blamed on the stagnant construction industry, with a spokesman stating that the plant was "reducing output to a minimum in light of the continuing downturn in the construction industry."
This follows the closure of Marshalls Cement, not far from Hanson Cement, in Llay, near Wrexham, which shut down in may with the loss of 55 jobs. (12)

In both cases, management has cited the stagnation of the construction industry and the resultant drop off in demand for cement as the primary reason for the job cuts and closures.
Hanson Cement (and Marshalls) does differ from both Anglesey Aluminium and Air Products, in as much as the capitalist crisis has undoubtedly had a severe effect on construction. Hanson are not switching production; rather, they are ceasing production, at least at the Flintshire plant.

It does, however, seem ridiculous that we are currently seeing massive job losses in the construction industry across the UK when housing remains such an issue, with the BNP in particular using pressure on limited social housing stock and an absence of affordable housing to gain political capital. Whilst the news that the New Labour government intends to undertake a programme to build 3,000 council houses and 20,000 affordable houses over the next two years is to be welcomed, in as much as it is better than nothing, it remains evident that this does not go far enough. (13) A programme could be adopted to build new social housing stock and affordable housing on a mass scale, which, combined with the termination of the right to buy programme, would serve to alleviate the huge pressure on limited existing stock, provide employment for the hundreds of thousands of threatened construction workers in the private sector, and cut off the BNP and the far right's main source of oxygen by providing employment and housing on a vast scale.

Likewise, a similar large scale construction project on Anglesey could have not only provided work for the beleaguered construction workers, but also delivered an environmentally beneficial source of renewable energy, which would have sounded the death knell of nuclear power in the UK.

In addition, key employers such as Air Products and Anglesey Aluminium (Rio Tinto) should have been prevented from switching production to non-unionised plants in low wage economies given that the levels of profits of both multinational companies, and the continued profitability of their north Wales plants, demonstrates their viability.

Both companies should be made to open their books, and if necessary both sites should be nationalised to ensure there are opportunities for skilled workers in the already decimated local economy of North Wales. However, it appears that while the government, and indeed the capitalist establishment as a whole, are more than happy to bail out the bosses and the bankers, there are no such plans to bail out the workers.

Holyhead worker victimised for speaking his own language

Taken from the Socialist Party Wales wesbite (www.socialistpartywales.org.uk)

A Bangor Socialist Party member

The front page of the North Wales Daily Post on May Day splashed a story of a worker at the Holyhead Morrisons store who had felt compelled to quit his job after being told not to speak Welsh. The last straw was when he asked another worker in Welsh to move some items into the store warehouse, when the store manager (who only speaks English) was passing by. The manager asked him not to speak in Welsh as he thought the workers might be talking about him. According to a Morrisons spokesperson the worker was having a conversation with the manager when the incident occurred. On the face of it, this amounts to bullying a worker into speaking a particular language.
The 2001 census showed that over 20% of the population of Wales spoke Welsh, but this increases dramatically in North West Wales, with 69% and 60% speaking Welsh in Gwynedd and Anglesey respectively. This means that Welsh is the first language of a sizeable proportion of workers in the area. Indeed in the quarry industry, which 100 years ago was the area’s main industry, the North Wales Quarrymens Union conducted all its business in Welsh. Moreover, being forced not to speak Welsh has echoes of the period of the emergence of capitalism in Wales which saw English bosses ban workers from speaking the language in order to maintain their dominance, and children who only spoke Welsh at home forced to speak and study in English at school.
In the present case, the worker's trade union, USDAW, did not initially take this issue up, although they are now investigating it. That was left to Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) who have organised a picket outside the store to demand the right to work through the medium of Welsh. They have raised the need for the Welsh Assembly to have legislative powers over the Welsh language which should include the right to work through the medium of Welsh. Whilst this is undoubtedly correct, it doesn't go far enough.
Under capitalist society there are plenty of rights on paper, yet often the bosses can ignore them when it suits their needs. Workers have always had to fight for their rights, such as the right to vote or the right to belong to a trade union, which have been fought for. In reality, only workers organised via the trades union movement can guarantee those rights. Workers should have the right to communicate with people in any language that the person they are talking to is comfortable talking in. They shouldn't be bullied into speaking into any particular language just because a manager wishes to pry on their conversation

On Building Anti-Nuclear Campaigns

A week or so ago this question was brought up on Duncan’s blog. In the course of replying to the post I raised several points which I wish to develop further here. I’m going to develop them in relation to nuclear power in North West Wales, however, I hope that to an extent they can be transposed elsewhere, although important differences need to be taken into account (ie. the Sellafield reprocessing centre is obviously a different type of establishment to most nuclear plants).

In an attempt to appear ‘green’ first Blair’s labour government and now Brown’s has been driving towards a new generation of nuclear power as a solution to the ‘energy crisis’. They present it as a carbon neutral solution which needs to be adopted as existing energy sources (coal, gas, oil) are too dirty (and rely to a large extent upon ‘unreliable’ countries) and renewables (wind, tidal, wave etc.) are not developed enough get. So naturally what’s good for British capitalism is good for everyone.

But lets not forget that nuclear power gets ten times as much spent on research into it than renewables, or that nuclear gets massive subsidies. Or that nuclear power is not carbon neutral – the uranium has to be mined and transported, nuclear power stations have to be constructed etc. This isn’t to mention the health risks of radiation seeping out, the somewhat clichéd possibility of meltdown (unlikely – but given the bad safety record of the British nuclear industry, and the likelihood of a new generation of nuclear power been privately owned – it cannot be written off) and, probably most worryingly of all, that there is no known way of dealing with nuclear waste (and simply saying that we’ll somehow be able to deal with it in the future doesn’t solve the problem).

So nuclear power isn’t good and we know it. But this isn’t the whole story – nuclear power has been in existence in the UK for over 40 years, it has become embedded into local communities. Many of the places where nuclear power stations have been built are somewhat rural or isolated and thus the nuclear power plant is likely to be the main employer in the area. No matter how forceful the above arguments are, this is likely to be of far more importance.

I mean to write another piece on decommissioning nuclear power plants and nuclear waste, but for now it is sufficed to say that decommissioning tends to employ as many people as an active plant. Transfynedd is Gwynedd has been in the process of decommissioning for over 15 years now and still employs around about as many people as when it was active. This is before mentioning that maintaining renewable sources of energy would also employ some more people too. However, this level of employment is on a capitalist basis is only a beginning, on a socialist basis by reducing the working day, employment could be found for many more people.

As Socialists we need to go beyond just what any other anti-nuclear protesters say (as they do not necessarily solve peoples problems) and explain what a socialist society could do about these issues. We also need to orientate anti-nuclear campaigns to engaging in campaigning activities. Whilst Pawb (www.stop-wylfa.org.uk) is very good in terms of explaining the problems with nuclear power, it is much less good at getting ordinary people in Ynys Mon and Gwynedd involved in trying to do something to change the world around them. It is not just a question of doing something to stop this generation of nuclear power plants from being implemented, but a question of taking our destinies into our own hands so we don’t face this same battle again.

Anglesey’s Carbon Surge

This is the one hundreth post on this blog - yay! This is a letter, published in the Socialist this week - i know it's also the green party conference either this week or next, so i thought it was timely to post it. Tomorrow also marks on year of this blog (i think!) so i'll do a special anniversary post

Last week North Wales newspapers reported that goods from a major Anglesey employer, Anglesey Aluminium have been switched from rail to road transport. The move pushed through by Austrian company Metall AG, will add 100 lorries to the already congested North Wales roads and produce 5 times more CO2 than rail transportation.
The incentive for doing this of course is cost, another one of capitalism’s short sighted strategies for profit that are destroying our environment. Big companies like Anglesey Aluminium and Metall AG as well as large haulage firms should be taken into public ownership and their resources should be democratically planned if we are ever going to be able to do anything about the looming climate catastrophe.