Men that had trained and studied to be part of the future, men who had taken on hefty mortgages and started families were told there was a future, they openly wept as they were given their notice. Many were relieved as the strain of not knowing their fate had taken its toll. In the run up to the redundancies I saw men who had worked together for many years and built great friendships turn on each other as some stayed and others more senior had taken promotions to other jobs within the plant and in doing so had lost their seniority and were given notice, many with 20+ years service. The redundancies had hit hard, 750 half the workforce were to leave many of them management, the same management that had postered the works with newsletters about my verses regarding them as "speculative writings" there was a future for us all they claimed. The future was where it was intended across the Atlantic where in America the main plant was. Our little operation in Wales was just the prototype where the trials in production were made and when they worked were adopted in America, when they didn't work "no problem" all at the British tax payers expense from the £40 million investment. We were to become a stepping stone to the European Market nothing more, nothing less. To employ means to "use"!!! We were all used!!! "The Promised Land" said it all. When I left, the managers leaving with me shook the hand of the "speculative writer". The Welsh managers who stayed shook it and said "We will have you back one day". Fortunately, I found another job immediately. One year to the day they kept their word. I did not return. I was still hurting!!!
Where lost souls could be found,
Where prospects and a future
Could flourish on hallowed ground.
Where industries aged could rest assured
'Til the sunset of their day,
Where industries young could rear and settle
'Til they were old and grey.
This was reality, not a cruel dream,
Where fiction was brushed away
By a fact that could be seen.
A complex of industrial pride
To market the Welsh made can,
To blossom and grow and bury its roots
To secure the local man.
A pawn is he to the Capitalists life,
He's rejected by a Governments stand.
Cruel it is, reality has come,
An illusion in the Promised Land.
A mirage to the many who go
To the dole queues for their stamp,
Reality for all who stay,
Their Promised Land "Mien Camp"?
The complex now a monument,
Reduced to half it's size.
Written in tears it's epitaph,
Rekindles it's ink in your eyes.
"Here there was reality,
A Welsh welcome to Investment was fused.
Where a Government demoralized it's beings,
Once more the inhabitants used.
Where the aged grew older faster,
The committed young looked back to the womb.
Science and Capitalism moved faster than man,
There's no place. Death is late, birth to soon".
| I have been made redundant 3 times in the last 20 years and
been very fortunate to be re-employed almost immediately. However I
know that for many, short term employment, low paid employment and
worst of all long term unemployment was more than they could take. There can be nothing more sole-destroying than to lose your worth, your self-esteem, your ability to provide, your self respect and to be seen as unemployed, when you really want to play your part. To employ means to "use". If you're unemployed does this mean you're "useless"? I have never been able to understand why a Government could take jobs from people with little thought, if any, to the harm they do to people that want to work. A Governments duty is to provide that essential need, not to unemploy enmass with no plan set out to re-employ. I have lost count of the people I know that payed the price for a Governments stand. People that suffered marriage break-ups, alcoholism, depression, attempted suicides and committed suicide, because they felt of "no use". That should bring shame on all of us that had a job, were of use, but did not feel their pain and unfortunately did not want to. The pressure on people today to play their part does not just stop with the unemployed being "at risk" when it comes to someone wanting to succeed or to please:-The Committee of Vice-chancellors and Principals, the universities' ruling body, recorded 140 deaths in 1998, the last year for which complete figures are available, compared with 80 in 1990. A total of 1,100 students aged 19 and over committed suicide between 1990 and 1998, with three times more men taking their own lives than women. (THE SUNDAY TIMES) The Samaritans and Youth Facts & Figures · Two young people die from suicide every day · Suicide accounts for a quarter of all deaths of young men and is the second most common cause of death for the under 25s after road accidents · One young person attempts suicide every thirty minutes · 19 000 cases of attempted suicide among adolescents every year · Attempted suicide by young men under 25 yrs has almost trebled in 10 yrs · Twelve young men under 25 yrs die from suicide every week · Two thirds of suicidal young men say they have no one to talk to about feelings of depression or despair The statistics on this page are mainly of "The committed young that looked back to the womb". There are just as many suicides from the older generation that were put out of work into an unwanted early retirement. This was a generation that had known regular employment and were bred to do what they knew, nobody taught them how to adjust (did anybody care) and their skills were lost. Today too late for them those skills are back and in demand greater now than ever. The following paragraphs I have taken from a collection of statistics that had references to depression. Unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse and relationship breakdown have had a major impact on the rising suicide rate among young people. The first psychological study of suicides among the under-35s in the UK found that social changes in the past 20 years have played a big role in the growing number of young people taking their own lives. The number of young men committing suicide has doubled since the early 1980s, while rates for women are coming down. Researchers at the School of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Withington Hospital in Manchester interviewed close contacts of 84 people under the age of 35 who had committed suicide in the area - 81% of them men. They compared these with 64 others who were matched for gender and age. They found that suicide victims were three times more likely to be unemployed, five times as likely to have a history of alcohol or drug misuse and far more likely to have relationship problems, either with a partner, parent or peer. When you take the unemployed statistics over the last 20 years and divide them by the suicides by the unemployed ,Governments should note:-When you are long term unemployed you are far more likely to end up dead than being employed in any of our most dangerously classed occupations. I will finish with reference to the statement by Michael German at the top of this page ("lowest unemployment figure for 25 years") and the final line of my verse ("There's no place. Death is late, birth to soon") May I ask this one question. Who really paid the price for what we have today? |
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