Monday, January 15, 2007

And in today's Parochial News


A picture from about 40 years ago of where I live .

Sit-in call for NCR plant

THE 650 WORKERS to be sacked by NCR should resist the closure of their plant and occupy it in a bid to make the US management change their minds, an economics lecturer at Dundee University said last night.

In what appeared to be encouragement for a return to the flexing of industrial muscle of the 70s and 80s, Dr Carlo Morelli maintained the last Dundee occupation—at the Timex factory at Milton of Craigie—while failing to halt the closure, prevented further manufacturing closures in the city.

He said, “If management at NCR will not manage, the workers should do it themselves.

“They are perfectly able to manufacture a number of things there but everything that may happen is predicated on one thing—that the redundancies are resisted and the way to do that is through the occupation of the factory.”

Dr Morelli pointed out that— unlike Timex or Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, which were heading for meltdown anyway—NCR was a very profitable company with no financial reason for closure except profit.

He said, “What we have is a company doing extremely well and simply trying to maximise its profits from its manufacturing process.

“This is all being driven by the financial rationale of a globalised financial system and the people who are paying the price are 650 NCR workers and their families.”

It was a manufacturing plant with a highly-skilled workforce, he said, and the question is how the workers can challenge the decision to close the plant.

“The solution would be for the workers to take control and challenge the management’s right to manage.

“If they will not manage, then the workers can do it themselves.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that is starting to emerge in Latin America, and if the workers at NCR adopt this approach, you can bet your bottom dollar it would get a huge measure of support not just in Dundee and throughout the UK but globally.”

Dr Morelli (pictured) said resistance by workers and unions, scuppered Ford’s plans to establish a factory in Dundee which would have undercut wages and conditions in the rest of the motor industry.

“I think action by the NCR workforce can change minds.

“They could occupy the plant, carry on making cash machines or other items which they could do very efficiently, but these questions can’t be asked until they challenge the redundancy plans.

“It may well be that NCR will change their view and say they will keep the plant open.”


I'm really not sure how I feel about this. The Timex strike was a really bad time in Dundee and it's easy to say that it resulted in companies not being able to undercut conditions and pay in industry but it was Dundonians who suffered in the end. If workers were to go through with an action like this I would support them but I'd have real doubts about the outcome. It's all a worry really.

Rangers 5-0 Dundee United

This and the New Years Day stuffing by Falkirk are not good but I refuse to get down about this. The team Levein played on New Years day was the exact team that beat Aberdeen two days earlier and the fact that they gave the game away in the second half shows how tired they were. Rangers had just got rig of they're idiot manager Le Guen after, in a bid to prove who was in charge, he told Rangers and Scotland captain Barry Ferguson that he would never play for the club again. Suffice to say Le Guen found out who was in charge and got replaced by Scotland coach Walter Smith last week and Ferguson captained the team against United. Whatever else I think of him, and I'me very angry that he abandoned the Scotland job, Smith is an inspired manager who did fantastically with Rangers in the 90's and there's normally a change in how the team plays when a bad manager is sacked so I'll take the drubbing with good grace.

I'm still pissed off that Smith abandoning the Scotland job means we probably won't get into Euro'08 though. :(

In which Garry wanders through Youtube

You know when I started blogging last year I though this is it finally my voice will be heard, lives will be touched by my startling prose, deep-seated political views will be changed and we will all begin to question Globalisation, the Free Market Economy and Economic Imperialism. From this small beginning we would enter a new golden age of peace, love and understanding and McFly would be sacrificed to Mighty Cthulhu in an orgy of blood and violence!!!

Sorry got a bit carried away there.

Instead I've mainly bitched about letters to the local paper, inflicted my favourite poems on you and wittered about music. Och well eh?

Anyway last night I opened a bottle of beer and sat down to begin my great crusade against the forces of oppression. This was it I was finally going to make my mark on the world.

Right after checking out my Hogmanay videos on Youtube. They'rr from Stonehaven and I quite like the peeps throwing fire about but from there it was all downhill. You see the problwm with Youtube is that there's just so much fantastic crap on it that you never seem to get around to checking it out but last night it turned out that I had plenty time and plenty beer to finally check out the good stuff.

For true brilliance the first place to go is sunny Turkey famous as the gateway to the Middle East, future member of the EU if they can ever get around to stopping the Kurd oppression bit and purveyors of dodgy film rip-offs the most famous being Turkish Star Wars with it's blatant stealing off Star Wars footage blended cunningly in with the story of two middle-aged space pilots who crash on a desert planet and proceed to battle dodgy evil peeps. Highlights include a fabulous training montage in which you get to see our heroes buff bodies as they build up their kewl powerz by hitting rocks, the cantina fight scene with it's Turkish kung fu and a subtle plot full of romance and danger. I don't know much about art but I know hilarious crap when I see it and this is it. Sublime.

Close behind in brilliance comes Turkish Superman with it's ground-breaking special effects and powerful central performance. Frankly Superman is scary as hell in this film.

But ludicrous films are not just the provenance of our European cousins our American ones can be just as bad. In the 90's schlock director Roger Corman owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie but he had to make a movie in order to retain. At the last minute they threw together the first Fantastic Four movie at the last moment. The whole movie's there in 10 minute chunks if you can bear it. I recommend it if only for Reed Richards ludicrous haircut.

I've also come across peeps just being daft I mean why would anybody dare to try the MC Hammer Dance when we know that Rosa is the true mistress of the Hammerstylee even if she's a little out of practice and says she'll batter me if I ever put up a video of her getting down. I'm a little disappointed that the actual episodes of Red vs Blue have been taken down due to Disney releasing them as DVD's as it is a piece of genius which should be loved in that special was by all Halo fans Bowchickawowow!

So it looks like the human race is doomed to keep repeating all the same mistakes but at least we've got plenty of hilariously funny videos to watch as civilization falls and hey you never know I might get around to posting my 10 point plan to solve the Middle East crisis later. Right after I check out these Sims 2 videos though.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Shocking Parochial News

NCR jobs bombshell

NCR today dealt Dundee a devastating jobs blow, with 650 posts being axed from its manufacturing plant at Wester Gourdie. Amid anger and tears, staff were told at a mass meeting that what was once a city industrial giant will, by the summer, be reduced to a skeleton operation of around 100.

Swingeing cuts had been expected in light of increasing competition for work from the company’s factory in Hungary, where costs are lower.

But employees streaming out the gates of the factory after today’s announcement said they were stunned at the extent of the redundancies, announced via video-link from America.

Said one, “We knew it was going to be bad, but 650 jobs is a shock. People are very upset, very angry. What do we do now?”

NCR Corporation said in a statement it plans to shift the focus of its automatic teller machine manufacturing in Dundee to “new product introduction and production of low volume, high complexity products.”

The company cited a changing market environment and competitive pressures for the decision to cease high-volume manufacture of ATM products in the city.

Management said they anticipated that current manufacturing-related positions in Dundee will be reduced by approximately by 650 by mid 2007 — a proposal subject to consultation with unions.

Controversially, given recent assurances to the contrary, the company confirmed the work will be shifted to the plant at Budapest, as well as Beijing and India.


After more than 60 years NCR shafts it's Dundee workforce so it can outsource the labour to Hungary and China and no doubt increase shareholder confidence. In the 1980's both Reagan and Thatcher talked about how loyalty to corporations would result in their loyalty to the workforce and a lot of people believed their lies. Since then we've had Timex leave Dundee and more recently Tesco and and Michelin cut jobs across the board and the same thing is happening all across the country normally in already deprived areas. For a small city with high unemployement like Dundee the loss of 650 jobs can be crippling for the local economy.

Workers gutted.

Reacting to the devastating news Fintry man George Devlin (42) emerged from the meeting a broken man. He said emotions were running high inside the NCR plant.

“They never even told anybody who’s going, they just said 650 will go by the middle of the year. They just told us it is in the hands of the union.

“Inside it is just total anger and disgust at the management.

“Last year they told us a big pack of lies.

“They said the Hungary plant was never going to affect the Dundee plant.

“I believe Hungary without a doubt has affected us.

“I think there has been one factory in Canada closed, one in Brazil and one somewhere else I can’t remember. They seemed just to be keeping places where they can get cheap labour.”

Mr Devlin, the father of three young children, said he was so disgusted with the news he walked out before the meeting ended.

“I walked out because I didn’t want to listen to it any more.

“The head man wasn’t even there, he was on a video ‘I cant be there’ blah, blah blah.

“Inside the meeting they were not answering questions, it was just a big shouting match.

“There are women in there crying one of whom has been there 36 years. She couldn’t even speak on the microphone: she was so upset she couldn’t even talk.

“I have only been there two-and-a-half years, but I feel really sorry for people who have been there a lot longer.

“It does look bleak for me now. There’s talk on Michelin going down the same road. I don’t have a clue what’s coming for me now.

“I think we will get compensation of some sort but it does not make up for not having a job.”

Asked what the future now held for him, he said, “It’s bleak, very bleak.”

Kevin McKenzie said, “My wife doesn’t have a job and it looks like I’ll not have one either after this.”

Scott McIntosh from Hilltown, a test technician, said, “They’ve not got a care about the working person — they’re only interested in the bottom line and more money for the shareholders.

“It is sad for the workforce and sad for the people with young families.”

Charleston man Derek Shaw (49) said, “I hope they stay in Dundee at least in some form.”

Peter Gow (62), of Ardler, said before the meeting, “Over the last few months the speculation has been detrimental to the whole workforce regarding the status of the company here.

“Last year promises the company made that Hungary would not be detrimental here look questionable today.

“I feel in the long term there is going to be a reduction (in production) of some form.

“We can only hope the outcome today is not as drastic as we may fear.”

Frances Tanbini (63), of Dundee, said she would not be substantially affected given her age, but added, “I do feel sorry for younger members of the workforce.”


But all of that's okay as long as the shareholders are happy. Makes me sick!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New Year!

I'll be posting about Christmas and Hogmanay soon but I didn't want my reader to think that I'd forgotten him so I present a poem by the Bard,

Oh whisky! soul o' plays and pranks!
Accept a bardie's gratefu' thanks!
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks
Are my poor verses!
Thou comes - they rattle in their ranks,
At ither's arses!

Fortune! if thou but gie me still
Hale breeks, a scone, an' whisky gill,
An' rowth o' rhyme to rave at will,
Tak a' the rest,
An' deal't about as thy blind skill
Directs thee best.