Mark Pickersgill, Stevenage Socialist Party
The owners of the Vauxhall van plant in Luton have announced its closure, ending 120 years of vehicle production in the town. Production of electric vans will be transferred to Ellesmere Port. However, up to 2,000 jobs are at risk, according to trade unions. Local parts suppliers will also be affected.
The loss of these well-paid jobs will have a big impact on the town. The plant used to employ 37,000 workers in its heyday in the 1960s. In 2002, 2,000 jobs were lost when car production ended.
The parent company Stellantis took over Vauxhall in 2021 from General Motors. It blames the decision to close the factory on government quotas for the production of electric vehicles or ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles). The quotas mean that 22% of cars and 10% of vans produced have to be ZEVs, otherwise a £15,000 fine is imposed for every vehicle produced over that quota. By 2035, all vehicles produced will have to be ZEVs.
Stellantis also owns Citroen and Peugeot in France, together with Fiat and Chrysler. This year, the company announced a 3 billion euro share-buyback scheme. It is a multi-million dollar company seeking to protect its profits.
The closure of vehicle plants means that workers’ jobs are sacrificed for that particular pursuit. Stellantis has been criticised by the Italian government for exploitatively moving car production to low-wage countries. The company has also imposed temporary closures on car plants in the US.
Across Europe, other car companies are cutting back. Ford announced 4,000 job losses, which includes 800 in the UK, and VW is closing three car plants in Germany. Stiff competition from China is also eating into the profits of these companies.
Green transition that protects jobs
In the UK, only 18% of vehicle sales this year were electric. The cost of electric vehicles is prohibitive for most people. The complete lack of infrastructure, including the sparsity of charging points, is also a barrier for people wanting to move to electric vehicles.
Since the announcement of the closure, the CEO of Stellantis suddenly resigned, and £2.4 billion was wiped off the share price.
Workers should not have to pay the price for the bosses’ failure. A jobs massacre is taking place – this announcement follows the destruction of jobs and skills at Tata Steel, Grangemouth oil refinery, Harland and Wolff shipyard, and others.
We say no job losses in the car industry. Instead, the skills and experience of workers at Vauxhall and elsewhere should be harnessed to produce carbon-neutral technologies.
The Socialist Party stands in solidarity with the workers in Luton, and everywhere where mass redundancies and closures are threatened.
Immediate preparations for militant industrial action, allied to a call to working-class communities in Luton, can give workers confidence that it’s possible to oppose Stellantis’s plans, and send a clear message to senior management that their plans will be fought.
But as part of this, it is essential that the car unions link action to the demand for nationalisation as an alternative to capitalist devastation. Because private enterprise, which always puts profit first, cannot be relied upon to implement a transition to affordable electric vehicles and a carbon neutral world.
The solution is to nationalise the car industry under democratic workers’ control and management, to plan production and implement a green transition that protects jobs and skills.
