Diageo press ahead with jobs slaughter

Workers action needed to save jobs at Johnnie Walker 

Diageo, the global drinks multinational, is to press ahead with its planned jobs slaughter in the West of Scotland. A total of 900 jobs are due to be lost at Johnnie Walker’s bottling plant in Kilmarnock and the distillery at Port Dundas in Glasgow. Diageo bosses rejected the Scottish governments “alternative business plan” that had proposed a new bottling plant in Kilmarnock but with hundreds of fewer jobs. Despite making profits last year of over £2 billion the Diageo bosses rejected the offer of government money and said: “We examined the alternative proposals thoroughly. They don’t deliver a business model that would be good for either Diageo or Scotland.

The trade unions at Johnnie Walker’s had gone along with the Scottish governments proposals despite the fact it would have led to hundreds of their members losing their jobs. This strategy has utterly failed and the only way forward now is for the workers at Kilmarnock and Glasgow to organise decisive and urgent action to defend their livelihoods and the future of their communities.

However, the potential to use the huge demonstration as a springboard to build a mass campaign, central to which is organised action by the workers affected by the threatened closure, has so far been squandered. Led by the SNP government and the local council, mistakenly the trade unions have put their collective faith in the hands of an “alternative business plan” put forward by the task force led by Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish government.  It came as no surprise when the private consultant hired to draw up alternatives to the closures backed the cost-cutting plans of Diageo. The united campaign declared itself in favour of a plan that would involve saving the distillery at Port Dundas in Glasgow and the building of a new bottling plant in Kilmarnock, with up to 250 jobs losses from the 700 workers who are currently working at the Kilmarnock plant.  Diageo have rejected this proposal. 

The shocking role of the union leaders who have attempted to merge the interests of the workers with that of the market based solution is a huge mistake. Unlike for example the workers at Vestas, Visteon, Lindsey Oil and Linamar in South Wales who all either occupied their plants or took or threatened militant strike action, the workers at Johnnie Walkers are being led up a blind alley by their own union leadership. Unless the workers at Kilmarnock and Post Dundas take control of their own struggle and put forward their own demands independent of the joint task force the danger is that hundreds of jobs will be lost without any organised action by the workers themselves.

The battle for jobs at Johnnie Walker has exposed the role of the SNP government. John Swinney, Scottish finance minister, has accepted that Diageo are right to make savings of up to £40 million on their Scottish operations. And while posing as defenders of jobs in the West of Scotland they supported plans that would have led to hundreds of job losses if their alternative plan was accepted by Diageo.            

Diageo brazenly declared that  the economic outlook for the company would see a 7-9% operating profit turn into a 4-6% profit as a result of the recession. They therefore intend to devastate a local community like Kilmarnock and see over 900 workers lose their livelihoods – many of whom will struggle to find another job – like sacrificial lambs slaughtered at the alter of corporate greed.

This cost cutting won’t apply to to the top bosses. Diageo chief executive, Paul Walsh, pocketed £2.27 million in 2008. If that were not enough Walsh also holds a number of other posts including a non-executive director of Centrica, a governor of Henley Management College, chairman of the Scotch Whisky Association and a noe-executive director of FedEx Corporation in the USA.  

Workers action can win

Len McLuskey, the assistant general secretary of Unite said at the mass demonstration in Kilmarnock, “People power and organised labour can change Diageo’s mind it, and we intend to change it.” But these words need to turned into action.  And up to now there is no sign that any action by the trade union leaders is on their agenda.  

A mass campaign, including strike action, to defend the jobs by workers and the trade unions at Johnnie Walkers with an appeal for support and solidarity to workers in the other plants and distilleries run by Diageo in Scotland is the only way forward. This should include an international appeal among workers who work in other Diageo run brands like Guinness for solidarity and to help expose the scandalous action of the bosses.

Now that Diageo have refused to change their plans urgent action needs to organised by workers. Such a campaign should be linked to a campaign to bring Johnnie Walker into public ownership to save jobs rather than subsidise the private greed of Diageo.

We say

• No job losses at Johnnie Walker operations in Scotland.
• Open the books of Diageo for inspection by the workforce to prove the profitability of the industry and the case for keeping the jobs.
• If the company go ahead with their plans Johnnie Walker should be brought into public ownership under the democratic control of the workforce.
• Support workers in Kilmarnock and Glasgow in building a mass campaign to save their jobs