GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

about manufacturing. Those of you who come from unions that have members

in manufacturing will know that you cannot have a successful economy unless

you have a successful manufacturing sector. I always think you have to make

money to be able to spend it and we need a good vibrant manufacturing sector

to create the wealth that we then want to redistribute and we want to spend on

our schools and our hospitals and on our social care, so having a

manufacturing sector that can create wealth is massively important. When I

first became a fulltime officer a few years ago now, before Ronnie jumps in and

insults me again, the manufacturing sector accounted for about 35/40% of the

economy. Over the years we have seen the decline in manufacturing and I

think the latest figures are now that the manufacturing sector is probably down

into single percentage figures. We just do not make anything any more in this

country.

The steel industry is absolutely key and vital. It is a foundation industry and

actually Conservative Prime Ministers have said that we cannot have a

successful manufacturing sector without a successful steel industry. So it is a

challenging time for us at the moment. We are trying desperately to see what

we can do and how we can support the workers and support our members up

there. Even at this late stage we are making phone calls to politicians and to

the owners to try and talk some sense into them and even to pull something out

of the fire at this late stage. I was talking to Manuel the other day. He is not

here now, but Manuel has been brilliant, because at the Scunthorpe site they

have the rail plant and they make all of the rail for Network Rail, so obviously

Manuel and TSSA have got an interest in that. Manuel wrote a very, very

strong letter of support which he actually sent off to the Secretary of State

pointing out the importance of the plant to rail production and that we must

maintain rail production in the UK. That was well received by my members, we

are very grateful to the TSSA for their support, and obviously we will take back

messages of support to the workers if that is what we deem today. It was too

late probably because of the timings to put in an emergency motion. John said

you wanted to have a brief update on the current situation, but it does not look

good, to be honest with you.

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