Unions look to learn from Red Clydeside

ONE of the leaders of the famous Upper Clyde Shipbuilders “work-in” has claimed that Scotland’s trade union movement could use the same tactics as a “weapon in the armoury” against controversial cuts and job losses.

Davy Torrance, a member of the co-ordinating committee during the late Jimmy Reid’s work-in at the Upper Clyde shipyards, which resulted in thousands of jobs being saved in the early 1970s, made the claim ahead of a Scottish Parliament debate today to mark the 40th anniversary.

The stark warning from Mr Torrance, who worked as a draughtsman on the Clyde for 50 years, came as the UK faces the possibility of a wave of bitter public sector strikes over jobs and pay this winter.

Mr Torrance went onto claim that Jimmy Reid’s famous “no bevvying rule” during the 1971-72 shipyards was accepted by the thousands of workers involved in the dispute, because the “world was watching”. His suggestion about industrial action was backed by a senior Scottish trade union figure, Tommy Campbell, an organiser for Unite T&G who said that an Upper Clyde Shipbuilders style-work-in would be an “essential weapon” for the trade union movement.

Senior Labour MSP Hugh Henry, a former government minister, is due to lead a Scottish Parliament debate on the work-in today, along with a celebration event at Holyrood this evening to be addressed by First Minister Alex Salmond and Len McCluskey, the head of Britain’s biggest union Unite.

Mr Torrance said: “People might suddenly discover it as a method of how to do it. It could be another weapon in the armoury of the workers that might be used again.

“History has a habit of repeating itself and workers will develop a way of fighting back.”

He went on to reveal workers involved in the sit-in realised they had to stick to the “no bevvying” promise if they were “going to win.”