Workers fight to defend McVitie’s jobs

Matt Dobson reports

Hundreds of workers, their families and supporters took part in a rally on Saturday in defence of the closure-threatened McVitie’s factory in Glasgow. Organised by the GMB trade union, the Save McVitie’s Tollcross campaign has begun.

Socialist Party Scotland stands in full solidarity with the McVitie’s workers and the trade unions. Close to 500 jobs are under threat from the proposed closure of the McVitie’s factory at Tollcross, in the east end of the city.

Multinational Turkish bosses Pladis – a highly profitable compnay and who last year made over almost £170 million – revealed their plans overnight on 11th May. They claim to be engaging in a “full and meaningful” consultation with the workforce but in fact staff and the plant trade unions, GMB and Unite, were given no warning.

Pladis claim they are working at “excess capacity” and only closure in 2022 and shifting production to other UK sites provides a sustainable model for investment. In reality the plant has been underinvested in, despite the company receiving £1 million in government investment

There were concerns about workplace safety during the Covid pandemic but the workforce were told to carry on as they were essential. Now workers are being kicked in the teeth.

The Tollcross factory, which first opened in 1925 as part of the MacFarlane and Lang’s Victoria Biscuit Works, is a major employer in an area with some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates and lowest life expectancy in Scotland.

Gary Smith, the GMB’s Scotland secretary, branded the move “shameful”, stating “Staff have worked through the pandemic, helping this business increase its lockdown sales into billions of pounds, but instead of re-investing some of that money back into the Tollcross plant and its dedicated workforce, management are rewarding them with the closure of their site within a year.”

Pat McIlvogue, Unite industrial officer, said: “The news that hundreds of jobs are at risk at McVitie’s Tollcross factory is devastating. We can’t allow a world-renowned Scottish brand to have no workers left in Glasgow and Scotland. Closure simply isn’t an option.

The full weight of the trade union movement must be mobilised behind a campaign in a fight to save jobs. Crucial to this will be mobilising the both the workforce and the local community. Pladis can’t be allowed to run down the clock.

Saturday’s rally and petitioning are an important first step in the start of the campaign. Mass meetings of the whole workforce, organised by the trade unions and local reps, should be called to discuss a fighting strategy.

If necessary industrial action should be considered as well as tactics like occupation of the plant if Pladis refuse to commit to staying in Tollcross. Such action would receive mass support from the working class across Glasgow and beyond.

An appeal for solidarity action and support should also be made now to the Pladis workforce across the UK and internationally. The trade unions should also demand the books of Pladis be opened to trade union inspection and scrutiny. Let the workers see the real profiteering that has been taking place.

The most powerful weapon the McVitie’s workers have is their industrial strength and the support of the wider working class. While support has been pledged from all the main political parties in Glasgow, and the unions and workers should be demanding that support, so far politicians have relied on appeals to Pladis for discussion about saving the plant.

Recent lessons of closure of manufacturing centres such as the Caley rail yard in St Rollox in the north east of the city, where the SNP government disgracefully allowed the company to walk away while refusing to utilise proposals around public ownership, shows appeals by pro-business politicians to the bosses cannot be relied upon. 

Ultimately, if Pladis decide to go the SNP government has to be held to its recent words that the jobs must stay. The considerable skills of McVitie’s workers and the productive assets and equipment must be saved. If necessary they could be turned to socially useful work. This means nationalising the Tollcross plant under the democratic control of the workforce in order to save the jobs and skills for the community.

Socialist Party Scotland calls for factories threatening closure to be nationalised as part of a wider socialist economic strategy. With tens of thousands of jobs at stake when furlough ends, taking major firms that are claiming insolvency into public ownership is a crucial demand that the trade unions can and should fight for.

Inside or outside the EU, the truth is that the bosses only care about profit. The jobs and livelihoods of ordinary workers they could care less about. A united mass struggle of the working class for our interests can defeat them.

• Support the McVitie’s workers’ fight to save the factory
• Open the books of Pladis to trade union and workers’ scrutiny. Let’s see where the profits have gone
• Build mass trade union and community action to demand the plant is kept open. No job cuts or reduction in pay
• Prepare for strike action and factory occupation if the bosses don’t back down
• Trade unions should demand that the Scottish Government bring the company into public ownership under workers’ control to save jobs