Bathgateis bitter harvest
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LEYLAND VEHICLES' decision to close its Bathgate plant is undoubtedly disastious for those employed there. LV's management must also be feeling pain at their enforced decision. The reason for the decision cannot be laid at the door of either party.
Drop in demand at home and abroad is given as the reason — but this did not happen overnight. Where have the economic forecasters been these past 10 years? Surely with their prophetic ability they should have seen that the third world would be unable to pay its way in the mid-Eighties. Nor did home sales suddenly fall. It did not need a graduate from the London School of Economics to predict that a decade ago.
The real blame lies at the doors of the management and trade unions of years ago. Their activity, or lack of it, has left a terrible legacy to the people of today.
From day one, over 20 years ago, there has been an "Us and Them" attitude at Bathgate. The seeds were sown then. Today the harvest is being gathered.
There will be bitterness and acrimony. There will be much political rhetoric and there will be anguish and despair, When will industry realise that the Us and Them attitude is self-destructive? It would help if politicians set the first example. Never was so much parsimonious claptrap exchanged than in the Parliamentary debate on Bathgate.
It won and lost votes, no doubt. It did not save Bathgate and the largest assembly of machine tools in Europe, will soon be idle. Nor did it save the jobs and self respect of 1,800 human beings.
The people's representatives and their economic advisers should have been considering Bathgate's future 10 years ago.