Jimmy Reid

Published 18 Aug 2010 13:30

I lodged a motion in the Parliament offering condolences to the family of Jimmy Reid, who died last week.

Jimmy was chosen to be the spokesman of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in during the 1970s.

He was the articulate voice of the workforce which was campaigning to halt the decimation of shipbuilding on the Clyde by the then Conservative government.

The work-in was one of the most significant industrial disputes of the last 50 years.

Ever since, it has been held up as a model of good practice by trade unions not only in the UK but throughout the world.

It is important to remind ourselves - and particularly our young people who did not live through it - how the UCS work-in captured the imagination, not only of the communities along the Clyde, but the whole nation and indeed the world.

Tony Benn eloquently led the political campaign against the Government, supported by local MP Hugh McCartney and indeed the whole of the Labour and trade union movement, from leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson, to engineering union leader, Hugh Scanlon.

Solidarity with the UCS campaign was pledged by workers in Europe, America, New Zealand and Australia, as well as by fellow workers in the rest of Scotland and elsewhere in the UK.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono donated to the fighting fund and additional financial support came from shipyard workers in the Soviet Union and Holland, as well as from the pockets of working people and pensioners throughout the UK.

The UCS collective exercised tight discipline, used the media to its advantage and showed that an effectively organised workforce could take on Government and business and win.

The fact that we still have shipbuilding on the Clyde is a tribute to its success, although ships are sadly no longer built in Clydebank.

But the efforts of Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie, together with Sammy Barr, Bob Dickie, Jack Tasker, Willie McInnes, Con O’Neill, Rab G McKenzie, Jimmy Cloughley and their fellow shop stewards, along with those of the workforce themselves, has a secured for the UCS workers their place in the history, not only of the Clyde, but of the wider trade union movement.

As our communities once more face the prospect of savage cuts from a Tory Government in Westminster and the indifference of an SNP Government, with no commitment to social justice in Holyrood, I hope that we will all remember the battle fought and won by the UCS workers and that it will inspire us to once more fight for not only our jobs, but our communities and our values.

Tweet

This article appeared in Clydebank Post 18 Aug 10

Follow @clydebankpost

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Opinion archives.