Commenting on the announcement of 650 redundancies at NCR in Dundee, Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary said:
“This announcement is a massive blow to the NCR workforce and the City of Dundee and, worryingly, comes at a time when Scottish manufacturing industry has been showing some signs of recovery. The impact on the supply chain is not yet clear but potentially very serious.
“The STUC trusts that the Scottish Executive and Scottish Enterprise Tayside will do everything in their power to ensure that the redundant workers are re-employed as quickly as possible. Whilst recognising the recent success of Dundee in creating new employment in biotechnology and software development, it is hugely regrettable that new opportunities in manufacturing will be extremely limited.
“Once again, in the context of this and other recent job losses, we have to ask why other European countries with wage costs comparable to Scotland and more robust regulatory environments have succeeded in retaining and, in some instances, growing their manufacturing base. The answer surely lies in economic development and corporate governance regimes which value the long over the short term, effective and meaningful social partnership at both political and workplace level and, crucially, success in exploiting growing markets abroad. It must also be stressed that it remains far easier to sack workers in the UK than on continental Europe”.
ENDS
For further information contact
Stephen Boyd 0141 337 8100 Notes
1 The Eurostat database confirms that between Quarter 2 2005 and Quarter 2 2006, the most recent figures available, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Sweden all increased their manufacturing workforces whilst the UK showed a substantial decline. Germany also showed a substantial increase (from 7.94M to 8.2M workers) reflecting its huge success in exporting to growing economies. Over the same period manufacturing employment in Scotland fell from 234,000 to 227,000.
2 The STUC believes that Government at all levels must do more to assist manufacturing by:
Implementing a proactive industrial policy, which through new and creative approaches in areas such as state aid and procurement, seeks to maximise economic and employment opportunities i.e. through the development of the renewables sector; Ensuring the MPC takes the state of manufacturing industry into account when deciding on interest rates; Providing more resources and profile for practical interventions aimed at improving productivity such as the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service; Challenging business to take advantage of unprecedented economic stability and a 40 year high in business profitability to invest in people, plant and research; Appropriate investment in skills development.