Private corporations are destroying Scottish jobs – and politicians stand idly by

Though much will remain and, if we believe them, much in the future is promised, a key part of the site will be ripped out of it with the confirmation of the closure of the plant from next year. On the face of it, 400 jobs are on the chopping block. In truth, in the wider supply chain, the job losses will run into the thousands.

The refinery was never going to last for ever. Its age and the impact of necessarily changing markets were key challenges. That these facts have been known for a long time only makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow for workers who have, once again, been let down by an international corporation and two governments.

The news is a body blow for workers (Image: free)

If workers had a pound for every time a closure was accompanied by the promise a rich new future lay around the corner they wouldn’t need to work at all. The truth is we have another failure of planning, of intervention and of strategy. Workers needed a stay of execution to smooth the transition. Timing is everything, but the government clock is running slow, not by months, but by years.

So is this an isolated issue in a dying industry? Hardly. On the same day as the death knell tolled for the Grangemouth refinery, down the road in Falkirk, Alexander Dennis – a beacon of hope for renewable manufacturing in Scotland – announced the culling of 160 jobs. ADL says that the government zero-emission bus funding is “disproportionately benefitting” foreign competitors with lower labour costs. It’s clear that the playing field is uneven.

Only in the last few months, workers have seen their jobs cut at SGL Carbon near Inverness because of a lack of demand for offshore wind turbine materials. Harland and Wolff (the latest owners of the BiFab yards) have stated that the yards in Methil and Arnish, on Lewis, are under threat once more. In truth, we’re not only failing to create the thousands of jobs that have been promised but actively losing some that already exist.

Despite turbines flying up, with many more to come, STUC analysis showed that in the last year alone, turnover in offshore and onshore wind had risen by a combined £3.5 billion yet the number of jobs had fallen. If you look at your energy bills or try and find a green energy job, you would be forgiven for thinking we weren’t a country with renewable potential at all.

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Last week the Scottish Government published their Green Industrial Strategy to little fanfare. We had been involved in late stages of the drafting and, unsurprisingly, had been highly critical. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that, bereft of an alternative vision, we are intent on prostrating ourselves at the feet of international finance in the misguided and frankly dated view that the benefits will trickle down.

Across the world, countries have abandoned the “market-led” approach to industrial strategy that has seen domestic industries hollowed out and wealth extracted from our communities over decades. The USA has its Inflation Reduction Act, and the EU has its European Green Deal. The Scottish Government has ignored past failures and prepared a strategy better suited to the 1990s than to the challenges and opportunities we face today.

It must recognised that the Scottish Government is not in possession of all the powers it would require to fully enact versions of the aforementioned strategies. And for the past 15 years the Tory UK Government has been swinging the industrial wrecking-ball. However early hopes that the new-found spirit of co-operation between Holyrood and Westminster would produce justice for workers through state action have been confounded.

In July, Sir Keir Starmer described it as his “duty” to project these jobs. That clearly wasn’t a sentiment shared by Petroineos. We shouldn’t be surprised. These are multinational companies making huge profits at a global scale. The first step politicians took to letting down the workers and community at Grangemouth was when they left such essential parts of our infrastructure in the sole control of private hands pursuing profits at all costs.

Successive governments in the UK have asked the wolves to guard the sheep. We’re seeing it again in Scotland through the Green Industrial Strategy. This wasn’t so much a strategy as rather a glossy marketing portfolio that sought private investment and served multinational corporations rather than our communities.

This market-led approach hasn’t been abandoned across the world without good reason. Countries have struggled to build industries which can create decent jobs. An obsession with the financial sector has skewed wealth into concentrated areas. The privatisation of key industries has undermined government’s ability to shape and direct our economy. Just look at our politicians crumble when companies tell them they shouldn’t end zero hours contracts, ban fire and rehire, or ensure all workers are covered by sick pay.

First Minister John Swinney meets workers’ representatives (Image: free)

Across critical infrastructure in the UK from our energy system to buses and railways, and steel-making – private companies have been left in charge to reap profits without caring for the long-term future of and their importance to workers and their communities.

Today we are left with the sadness and worry that will consume the workers directly impacted by the closure. Talk of investment and action plans from politicians, whilst welcome, will be soft consolation to those workers now on the hunt for new jobs in an industry that’s been unforgivably failed by those very same politicians.

Mark my words, another Grangemouth will happen again for so long as we are dominated by private interests reaping the profits of our critical infrastructures. Our support will go to whichever party or parties can finally produce interventions which reverse such heinous acts of industrial vandalism. Unfortunately, history tells us not to hold our breath.

Roz Foyer is the General Secretary of the STUC