The Longbridge Sacrifice

£14 million has been wasted so far on a sham of an inquiry at Longbridge so I think that it is about time someone spoke up for the workforce, including the management. The image of a strike ridden, bolshie workforce from the seventies was the one which remained in peoples’ minds but during the last fifteen to twenty years before its closure, this image could not have been further from the truth.

There was not one minute lost to industrial dispute at Longbridge in twenty years. The workforce had accepted some of the most flexible working practices in Europe and all categories of worker, from the track to senior management worked together in a spirit of cooperation that went little reported. Indeed the flexible working practices at Longbridge were in advance of those at the BMW plant in Munich.

The UK Government knew that Longbridge was not a basket case as far as the quality and dedication of its workers were concerned as I personally arranged visits to the site by Peter Mandelson, Stephen Byers and many others. Although I am sure that they were more interested in the photo op than really wanting to help. The local MP Richard Burden was one of the only politicians who genuinely tried to help.

I have heard too many comments regarding the ‘Billions of taxpayers pounds pumped into Longbridge’ and it makes me sick every time. Major, planned investment was never put into our motor industry. If you give a starving man enough to keep him alive he will never win any races. The French motor industry received real investment – and they still have one, as with Germany and Italy.

I know that the real story of Longbridge will be told but until then and quite simply, Longbridge was not making the losses reported by BMW and under UK accounting rules would have been in profit. The plant had a capacity of 300,000 vehicles a year and the truth is that there was and still is an overcapacity for vehicle manufacture in Europe and whilst other countries fought to save their industry, the UK failed to fight for ours, blaming EC rules for not allowing them to offer financial support - those same rules that were ignored by all other EC countries and were most recently and conveniently forgotten when the banks needed billions of government aid.