Helen Kerr, Stevenage Socialist Party
Despite the workforce meeting every challenge set by the company in respect to vehicle production at the Vauxhall plant in Luton, owners Stellantis are still pushing ahead with closure.
Protests before Christmas involving hundreds of workers peacefully blockading the plant, backed up by supporters, won a stay of execution. However, despite Unite reps holding meetings with Stellantis to put forward viable options to secure the future of the plant, the company announced on 5 February that the plant would close in April.
How does this fit into Starmer and Reeves’s “drive for growth”? This doesn’t just impact workers at the plant but will have a devastating impact on the town itself. Closure of the plant could have a financial impact of £320 million per year on the local economy.
Stellantis has chosen Ellesmere Port over Luton and is saying it could not keep both UK plants open as both would then be at risk.
We oppose all closures. To defend jobs and the community requires urgent major action, including occupation. Unite should be calling on the government to nationalise the Luton plant, and the wider car industry, with no compensation to the fat cat owners. Nationalisation under democratic workers’ control and management would mean that electric vehicles could then be produced at an affordable cost, securing jobs and creating a greener environment.
Unite should be putting pressure on the Labour government to step in as a matter of urgency; it should hold a demo in the town and raise these demands publicly.
The Socialist Party stands in solidarity with the workers in Luton, and everywhere where mass redundancies and closures are threatened.
