FOR our special series on arms sales, it seemed only right to look back on one of the most powerful statements of solidarity ever made by four men who worked at the Rolls-Royce factory in East Kilbride in the mid-1970s.
Robert Somerville, John Keenan, Bob Fulton and Stuart Barrie made a huge stand against the regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile between 1974 and 1978 by refusing to service and repair engines for the Chilean air force’s British-made Hawker Hunter jet fighters.
Pinochet had launched a military coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, just months before. The military dictatorship was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths following the coup.
Trade union members at Rolls-Royce passed a motion condemning the coup and this gave the workers at the factory the impetus to take even stronger action.
The East Kilbride factory was the only one in the world that serviced Hawker Hunter fighter jet engines, which were used to reduce the Moneda – Chile’s presidential palace – to rubble.
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On March 22, 1974, Fulton discovered where the next engine he went to work on had come from. Together with fellow shop steward Barrie, they agreed to “black the f***ers”, which saw them attach black labels to each part of the engine warning others to steer clear.
Fulton then went to his trade union convener’s office to say the workers at the factory would refuse to work on arms for Chile, and for the next four years thousands of employees risked their jobs by downing tools on Pinochet’s engines.
Fulton told the Daily Record in 2015: “I did what I felt was right. There was no way I could have worked on that engine knowing that these planes had been used to bomb the palace, kill the president, and strafe ordinary people – workers like myself. I blacked those engines on moral grounds.”
Given that trade union density was incredibly high at the factory, it left the bosses powerless to prevent the boycott. Meanwhile, in Chile, the workers became folk heroes, with prisoners of Pinochet’s regime known to have tuned into Radio Moscow to hear updates on the boycott, while letters of gratitude arrived in Scotland by the thousand.
Allende’s widow, Hortensia Bussi, heralded the move by the workers as “a beacon of light to those in Chile”.
What was the impact?
In 2018, a documentary film called Nae Pasaran was produced by Felipe Bustos Sierra, in which the former commander of Pinochet’s air force confesses the entire squadron of 29 Hawker Hunter jets was grounded for four years.
In 2015, Fulton, Keenan and Somerville were awarded the highest honour the Chilean Government can bestow upon foreign citizens for their bravery - the Order of Bernardo O’Higgins.
What happened to the engines?
The engines were moved outside the factory where they rusted and became unusable but it remains a mystery as to where they ended up after they disappeared one morning in 1978.
Lorries with a police escort and fake number plates took them away in the dead of the night with shop stewards suspecting the management had taken advantage of the empty factory to at last end the boycott.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about how UK arms sales work
In spite of this, the workers knew the engines would never fly after being subjected to the Scottish elements for four years.
Inspiration today
The actions of the Rolls-Royce workers inspired the film Nae Pasaran, which won the Best Feature award at the 2018 British Academy Scotland Awards.
As well as hearing the stories of the group, it also ventures much further to detail the horrors of the Pinochet years, meets survivors of the period and hears the Chilean side of the story.
It continues to hold relevance in trade union and solidarity movements today. Workers from across Glasgow’s hospitality sector launched the Serve Solidarity, Boycott Apartheid campaign last year which aims to support worker-led boycotts of PepsiCo products and Israeli fresh produce, including fruit and veg, following Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Nick Troy, chair of Unite Hospitality Glasgow, told The National the branch was inspired by the action of the Rolls Royce workers during the 1970s.
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