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From Militant, No. 733, 25 January 1985, p. 9.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
THE COLOURFUL posters cry “Make it in Livingston”. Despite the dubious nature of this slogan, it clearly advertises a rosy future in Livingston for those skilled and interested in the supposedly developing micro-chip industries.
But what prospects and benefits have the so-called ‘sunrise’ industries brought to Livingston, the ‘Silicon Glen’ of West Lothian. Looking behind the glamorous exterior of technical development, reality is rather different. In Silicon Glen youth are on the dole or in the dead end of Youth Training Schemes. The Japanese and American multinationals who own the factories want young, cheap, non-union labour; easy to exploit and then cast aside when no longer required.
In Silicon Glen you’re told “too old at 18, over the hill at 20”. In West Lothian, home of the sunrise industries there is well over 20% unemployment. Only a few miles from Livingston is one of the most deprived areas of Britain, Blackburn.
Youth have taken to drugs and the glue as they are robbed more and more each day of the hope of ever finding a job and future. The sun has never risen for the working class in Silicon Glen. The development of these space-age techniques has never been put to use to help the unemployed and the poor.
A report last year from a committee headed by a former chief scientist in Thatcher’s cabinet, said that Britain was headed for third world status, because of ‘lack of investment in information technology.’ Tell that to the poor. There are no limitations for developing the means of interstellar warfare, yet it has taken over a year to get food to the starving children of Ethiopia.
The truth of the matter is that the sunrise has been eclipsed by the disease of the bosses system, the system that can no longer provide the basic necessities. That system has no right to exist. Youth must fight back and change it.
Joe Owens Archive | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 6 November 2016