INVERCLYDE SHIPBUILDING

Scott Lithgow stewards show mettle in a storm by HUGH COCHRANE

Glasgow Herald January 25 1984

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IN THE heart of Greenock there is a statue of a propeller being hauled by three shipyard “helpers,” at least two of whom, I am told, are still to the fore.
Shop stewards in Scott Lithgow are also of a fairly metallic consistency. They are pleased by the support for the “work on” which began on Monday as a result of decisions taken at a mass meeting of the workers. Community spirit in Greenock and Port Glasgow is only part of what they are depending on to save these yards. Nearly all of the Scottish public, they are confident, will rally to their cause.
Among all the stirring talk I wondered what my late grandfather would have made of it. Alexander Bennett was iron and reckoned to spit and crack the pavement in East Hamilton Street. Fair-minded but short tempered, he was a foreman shipwright. Sir William Lithgow, grandfather of the present Sir William, blackballed him from the Lithgow yards and those of their associates on the Lower Clyde. He was allowed to return later, however, and I recall how the bosses would appear at his door at midnight politely asking him to turn out because there was a storm and a ship, ready for launching, needed to be secured safely in the berth.

Techniques, materials and marine structures have changed since then But for many workers it is still a tough, demanding job. Rig building, especially at the deck laying and completion stages, certainly is: no matter how many claims are aired (with some justification) about “sophistication” of design and “new frontiers of technology,” that remains true.

Drillships with dynamic, positioning systems were sophisticated. They built them at Scott Lithgow; a complex emergency support vessel for the offshore oil fields, too. They are convinced they can surpass that, if they get a decent set of plans (not subject to occasional amendments once the job has ‘been started) and a measure of understanding about the most suitable use of skills.

However, that’s another story, a bigger story. I have been trailing shout Kingston, the Clen and Cartsburn, looking at the campaign that has been launched and the men, who, like my grandfather, came out in time of storm to ensure that it got underway.

The whole of the joint shop steward committee, I am told, numbers about 70 or 80. The negotiating committee, the cabinet, comprises 15, who are not elected on the basis of trades union representation but as individuals. All the main unions in shipbuilding, the boilermakers, engineers, electricians, and joiners are represented on it.

Biggest representation is that of the boilermakers section of the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union. It has tended to be, nationally, the strongest opponent of changes in working practices in British Shipbuilders, although that is not necessarily true of the attitude of its members in Scott Lithgow.

Even before the BS “survival plan” was presented to them, or certainly before a response to it was expected from them, the negotiating committee members were given private, political warnings. There was a possibility that Britoil might cancel the contract for the big rig, as it did later. The Government, they were told, was likely to try for a “trade off”, closure of Scott Lithgow (or privatisation) for preservation of British Steel jobs at Ravenscraig.

They chose to fight the “survival plan”, nevertheless. In general, they accord praise to Dr Norman Godman, Labour MP for the area, but they are not impressed by politicians. Four of the shop stewards were in the House of Commons yesterday for the debate about the future of the yards — largely because, Duncan McNeil says, they will go anywhere, talk to anybody, in pursuit of their aims.

McNeil, secretary of the committee, is 33 years old, married with a son and a daughter, lives in Greenock. He says he has been put forward as their spokesman.

Clean-cut and broad-shouldered, he carries the air of a good middle-weight fighter who is afraid of nobody. He is cool and sardonic. He has worked in shipyards in Britain and Canada, not caring much for the union arrangements on the other side of the Atlantic.

As he sees it, the Scott Lithgow work force is younger than it was in the successful private enterprise days more than 20 years ago. Rightly or wrongly, many of them were conditioned to expect continuity of employment in the shipyards and comparatively good wages, too. The average age now is 34. Take home pay has not been maintained in comparison with other industries but they still have the same expectations about cars, better houses and holidays as the rest.

Sure, when there were the first bad signs that Britoil might cancel its contract some workers opted for voluntary redundancy, fearing the worst. But since last week’s mass meeting the “slippage has slowed”.

McNeil said: “People are saying ‘We can’t let this happen — we have to make a stand, not only for ourselves and our families and the community, but for Scotland’,”

Just along the road a wee man, a plumber he said, was being interviewed by the media. He admitted he had taken voluntary redundancy. The jig was up. If there had been the spirit and the leadership evident in the “work in” at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders a dozen years ago he would have stayed.

The shop stewards are conscious of such views. It must be said on their behalf that comparisons between what is happening at Scott Lithgow and the UCS campaign are unfair and probably based on fallacious notions.

Tactics are different; the sense of community identity is narrower and more intense. There is a greater element of mutual self- sacrifice, those in employment paying a levy to make up the normal wages of those who have been laid off by BS but are still reporting for duty at the yards.

More than 90% of the manual workers live within a four-mile radius.

Joe Murray, a shop steward from the salary section of the boilermakers, pointed out that, long before the present struggle, a man like him was liable to be stopped in the street on a Saturday and quizzed about divisional decisions agreed between management and shop stewards. The word gets round. Anybody’s liable to ask you for reasons, even the women if they think it’s liable to affect their man.”

BS have been looking for interchangeability and flexibility, two creed words in shipbuilding. Joe Murray, naturally conscious of the rivalry that once existed between all these yards and between the two towns, has a wry comment:
“We’ve achieved it. Guys in Port Glasgow marry Greenock lassies and vice versa. They’re all tied to the yards.

He is 36, married with two daughters and a son, living in Greenock. Understanding wives, he feels, are part of winning the battle, even though most of those married to shop stewards have jobs of their own—or possibly because of that.

I don’t know what my shipwright grandfather would have made of it. He did not approve of wives working. He had two sons and daughter who worked in these yards, the daughter being a French polisher and my mother. One of the sons came home from the First World War minus his writing hand. He taught himself to write copperplate with the other and Sir William, who had black- balled his father, gave him a job as a personal secretary.

In those times there were personal relationships, management and men. Nowadays there are good managers, but working for a state agency. Maybe that’s part of the trouble. It is difficult, I have found, to record impartial observations without feeling soft- handed, guilty.

Joe Baird, chairman of the shop stewards, calls himself “considerably older than the others.” He was in the old Lithgow yards in the good times. Looking over the altered terrain of the Lower Clyde, he can remember the former names, the Klondyke, Hamilton’s, and the rest. His family are all grown and he has been looking forward to decent retirement.

Right now he goes along with Duncan Mc Neil: “We’ve been on the defensive too long not just in Scott Lithgow We’re long overdue stronger action in Scotland to protect our industries.”

I don’t know what my old grandfather would have made of it. I have a haunting feeling that he would have bashed all their heads together and told them they should have got stuck in long ago, but afterwards conceded that there was the right spirit behind the cause.