A PROFIT of £86,036,000 was declared last April by the company which says it can't attora to keep its 190 female and employees working at Plessey Capacitors in Bathgate.
would foot Bathgate bill.
Why the layoffs? The Tories claim unemployunavoidable because of falling productivity, out of date restrictive union practices and wages which price workers out of a job.
poor old Plessey struggling to keep its head above water? Not exactly.
out £18m year they dividends flanucu thanks to a 40.7 per cent rise in pronts, according lo chairperson and chief executive sir John Clark Ir his annual report.
So perhaps an cooperative and surly workforce is forcing the Sir John didn't quite the Cos pany has eil.
Companv responsibility from employees and their representatives, explainea unael Ine neading Spirit of Plessey People' WORKERS оссируing Plessey's Bathgate plant have re jected a company ofACAS, 40 fer them by under which an unknown comArkonics Holdings - would buy up the factory with the loss of 140 jobs out of 220.
The workforce believe this is an asset-stripping operation probably sponsored by Plessey 'Interruptions of norma working hours have been minimal, recent wage settlements have been reached amicably at more realistic levels,' ' he goes on, and thank heavens 'unavoidable redundancy situations have DCCT resolved without disruphon.
In Scotland, where an ongoing unavoidable redundancy situation has pushed unemployment up to 13 per cent, this might m puzzlings such wonderful go-ahead company destroyed 5,600 jobs world wide in 1981 -• al a cost or 2i.o milon -closed 20 factories in the last three years? directors.
Meanwhile Plesseys are pushing for a reversal of the court verdict which stopped them evicting the occupation by force. The hearing has been postponed but will be held in the near future.
Here Alan Free. man looks at the background to Plessey management's manduevres Sir John explains that the closed factorie fered inadequate growth prospects or no longer fit. ted into the mainstream of group activities So much for luddite workers. In today's electronic world, 220 humar beings 'no longer fitted' But after all, aren't Plessey profits helping BriTall export-led track record for dynamic private enterprise? Plessey's base is in True, the modern high-technology electronics and aerospace sector, which grows while all around is collapsing. But it depends on government contracts at fat prothe taxpayers' pockets.
Remember this when you are lectured on the in. efficiency of subsidies and nationalised industry.
However like every right thinking patriot, John can draw comfort from Plessey's worldwide role For Plessey DOUCHE multinational, operating in 45 countries with major subsidiaries in every West European country, in the USA, in Hong Kong, Singapore Malaysia and South Africa.
Its South African company which also controls its Zimbabwe opera. tion - is the jewel in the take advantage local labour conditions by decding who it can exploit most easily and playing them off against those who fight back. And it can make best use of government grants.
In this respect Bathgate's own historv offers a clue to the future Sir John has HI SLOCO workers. The plant was acquired by Plessey in the '60s from a company called TCC, along with an Acton site. ine next few years saw the creation of a thousand acres wasteland and 3000 redundancies in Acton.
The assets were stripped and the machinery 'not fit for the scrapheap', according to Bathgate WORKER Scotland.
Grabbing nice development grant, Plessey was set up to milk the new prize dry. Now it's through, it wants to move to greener pastures workers are just : so muct raw material to be thrown on the scrapheap.
In case you're worried about all that land going to waste in Acton don't be. The Financial Times proudly reports that land values in W lest London are rocketing. minal Privet Terminal Heathrow airport will add on at least 25 per cent to land values when the authorities start buyıng - with public money, of Meanwhile the Plessey London's homeless site in Acton whil and Scotland's can praise Margaret Thatcher and Sir John Clark for the contribution made to their welfare by a truly patriotic management that respects the tree enterprise values on which our democracy was built.