Independent UK: The wheels come off Maggie's revolution

[marmar]

The wheels come off Maggie's revolution
Nissan's Sunderland factory was hailed as the future of British manufacturing. Now it is under threat. Paul Vallely finds a community at the sharp end of the global recession

Saturday, 10 January 2009


There was no-one working at Europe's most efficient and highest-productivity car plant yesterday. By bleak coincidence it was a "shut-down day" at the Nissan factory in Washington Road, Sunderland. Such days are part of the normal production cycle but this one felt like a grim augury.

The sun fell a dull orange, like a ball of cooling molten metal, as it dipped below the rows and rows of unsold cars which formed the horizon outside the low blue and grey warehouse-like modern buildings. The red of the giant Nissan sign bled into the cold grey of the dying light.

It ought not to have been like this. The Sunderland plant is the most productive car factory in Europe. It is Britain's single biggest car producer, turning out one in five UK-made motors. With 5,000 people on its payroll it is more than the north-east's biggest manufacturing employer. It is an icon of the revival of a region which had begun to turn the corner after decades of decline.

Yet inside, as the light faded, union reps were in negotiations with the Nissan management over the modalities of the redundancy announcement which had been made the day before, sending shock waves throughout British industry. Some 1200 jobs – a quarter of the total workforce – were axed, prompting fears for the jobs of the 10,000 outside workers who supply the giant car-makers. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-wheels-come-off-maggies-revolution-1297567.html

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Same revolution we had here, and

same wheels.

Or perhaps it should be called a counterrevolution.