MANY jobs in Scotland are directly tied in with military spending and production – the UK Ministry of Defence claims a £2.09 billion spend and 12,000 jobs supported – but trade unionists have nevertheless been proudly at the forefront of campaigns to oppose weapons sales to murderous regimes overseas and to promote diversification to civilian production wherever possible.
The solidarity with Palestine expressed at the STUC congress in Dundee was overwhelming and heartfelt. But it has not simply been a matter of words. In recent months, trade unionists have led the charge to cease UK arms exports to Israel in light of the mass slaughter in Gaza.
Scottish campaigners and their union colleagues have shut down the Leonardo UK factory here. Leonardo equips Israel with Aermacchi M-346 aircraft and parts for Apache attack helicopters. The company’s Edinburgh site is responsible for the laser targeting system used in F-35 fighter jets which Israel has been using in its bombing campaign.
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Workers and trade unionists have also blockaded major arms factories which are producing other components for these jets. Employing the banner Workers For A Free Palestine, they recently hampered access to GE Aviation Systems, for example. Unite, Unison, the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (Bectu) have been among the ancillary unions taking part in non-violent civil action against the arms manufacturers.
Alongside a £50bn defence budget and the Trident nuclear weapons system, the UK is the world’s seventh largest exporter of military equipment around the world, accounting for nearly 4% of all transfers, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), whose definitive research has just been published.
As pressure group Campaign Against Arms Trade points out, a large proportion of UK major weapons sales (the ones that can be most readily tracked) go to regimes with bad to appalling human rights records – governments which use these arms to control, repress or even attack their own populations and those who resist them.
The statement on defence spending from the STUC’s General Council, adopted in Dundee last week, was careful to distinguish between “the industrial importance of the defence sector to Scotland as a source of generally well-paid unionised jobs in an economy” and the corresponding focus on “further increasing domestic production within pre-existing budgets” from the dark and dangerous shadow of the arms trade.
Supported overwhelmingly by Scottish trade unions, the statement continued: “We repeat our call on the UK Government to discontinue arms licences for all sales to countries acting in breach of international law and/or where weaponry is used against civilian targets. This includes countries such as Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
"The General Council pledges to continue to be an educator for and a campaigner on peace issues in the run-up to the General Election and to pressurise the UK Government to cease arms exports to those guilty of war crimes.”
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Trade unions in Scotland and across the UK have a proud record of opposing weapons sales to oppressive regimes and working for the conversion, where possible, of military production to peaceful civilian use. In two years’ time we will mark the 50th anniversary of the pioneering corporate plan produced by the workers at Lucas Aerospace when they were faced with cuts and redundancies.
Using their considerable expertise, they proposed a wide range of products – from marine exploration submersibles and domestic heat pumps through to vehicles for disabled people – which could have been produced by adapting the same processes devoted to weapons of destruction, with a balance between profitability and subsidy.
One of the priorities for an independent Scotland would undoubtedly be a dynamic Defence Diversification Agency, not least in the light of the demand for a just transition away from carbon-intensive industries.
The current estimated cost of £2bn may be too much in total for our devolved budget (it is the present equivalent of our total budget for rail and bus services), but it could be of enormous industrial and social benefit with full powers coming back to the Scottish economy and which we can start planning for now.
Equally, the huge public subsidy to UK arms sales and the variable impact they have on run-on costs for domestic production can and should be diverted to investing in real human security and peacebuilding as part of an increase in Scotland’s positive influence internationally.
Scotland’s own defence requirements can and should be distinguished clearly from largely private profit from weapons sales that cause misery and death to workers around the world.
The solidarity that trade unions are showing towards Palestine has its roots in the solidarity Scottish defence workers famously demonstrated in blockading arms sales to Pinochet’s fascist dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s. It is also the seed of a much-needed different approach to military production and trading in the future.
Simon Barrow is national secretary of the SNP Trade Union Group. From 1977-86 he was a member of the steering committee of Campaign Against Arms Trade
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