Tate and Lyle's Liverpool closure is result of C
6th February 1981 from the Tribune Magazine Archive
Topics
LaborOrganisations
European Economic Community, Lyle Workers' Action COmmittee, Trade Union, Liverpool City COuncil, LaborPeople
Jellicoe, Napoleon, Hitler, Lyle Workers, ROBERT WAREING, John McLe, John McLean, TateLocations
London, Liverpool, Greenockommon Market policy
by ROBERT WAREING
THE blow delivered to Tate and Lyle's Liverpool workforce by the decision of Lord Jellicoe and his board of directors to throw them on to the dole queues was not unexpected but was no less a tragedy for all that. , After eight years of struggle, the workers were to be told by the company chairman that the plant was "a victim of EEC membership" which had brought "unfair" competition from the Common Market's sugar beet producers. 1,570 were to lose their jobs, adding to the 109,000 already officially registered as unemployed on Merseyside.
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Although they are used to so many body-blows to their sources of livelihood, Merseysiders were particularly anguished by- this decision as sugar refining in Liverpool dates from the last decade of the seventeenth century. e Many of the workers now facing dismissal are second and third generation with Tate and Lyle.
Whole families have been employed at the refinery — one of the men has just received his notice after 49 years' service at the plant. The refining of sugar on Merseyside survived Napoleon's blockade, the Kaiser and Hitler's U-boat campaigns, and the Blitz — but is now poised to fall to the policies of the EEC Commissioners.
The sins of the Commission are not, however, being visited on the firm's directors but on a loyal workforce who have never been accused of being "strike-prone".
Only two years ago, the workers had accepted 12-hour shifts as an act of faith that the company would keep the refinery open.
On the same day that the proposed closure of the Liverpool plant was announced, the directors declared pre-tax profits for 1980 of £30.7 million, £4.5 million up on the previous year. The Stock Exchange greeted the news of the pending closure by increasing the value of the company's shares by 12p. Such are the morals of capitalist economy.
Lord Jefficoe announced that closing the plant would cost £30 million, including £9 million in redundancy payments to thewthkers. The firm chose to ignore mama prOcedures and practices by slapping the 90-day severance
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terms in individual envelopes to its emplOyees over the heads of the trade union officers.
Tate and Lyle still supplies 50 per cent of the UK sugar market even though it has closed three refineries in recent years, reducing its production by 650,000 tonnes and rendering 2,000 workers jobless. Nevertheless, the EEC imposition of a 1.3 million tonnes quota on the import ofsugar cane into the Community has !lade a severe effect on the industry. On the other hand, sugar beet growers have been - encoin - aged by guaranteed prices and freedom of the EEC market while the sugar cane refiners have been offered no assistance to cover their processing margins — hence the justifiable charge of "unfair competition".
The plight of the Merseyside sugar workers is bad enough but the _current plan is cut 300,000 tonnes more by closing theLiverpool refinery will be catastrophic for some of the poorest -of the Third World's workers. Tate and Lyle have stated that they will not bel taking up 117,000 tonnes of cane sugar •— equivalent to the • total Zambian production.
Addressing the Liverpool City COuncil, Labour's John McLean, wlio is also the Secretary of the Tate and Lyle Workers' Action COmmittee, said "There will be pe . Ople who will die because of thts decision, make no mistake." the hope of many on Merseyside is that pressure from eight onwealth countries, whose Hi gh Commissioners are appealing to the EEC, will be a crucial element in the fight for their jobs.
The workers have called for a national boycott of Tate and Lyle's products until the closnre decision is reversed. A lead in this direction has already been agreed by the Liverpool - City Council which, despite Tory abstentions, offered to support the legitimate efforts of the trade unions in the fight.
The trade unions on Merseyside will be calling for a one-day stoppage in protest at the closure but it is a general Labour movement boycott which is likely to be the most effective weapon. The Liverpool sugar workers are call,
ing on the Trade Union movement to declare that, if one refinery closes then there should be, no increased output at Tate and Lyle's -London and Greenock plants. Furthermore, they are asking the Europeans trade unions for a statement to the effect that if the British company fails to accept the 1.3 million tonnes quota, they will handle no part of it.
Many more jobs will be at risk if this attack on our sugar cane refining is allowed to succeed. As ever, workers engaged in struggle require , financial assistance. Tribune readers should sent donations to John McLe..an, Secretary, Tate and Lyle North Nest Trade Union Committee, 15 Betlairs Road, Liverpool 11.