NEWCASTLE — In September 1999, the last billet of steel will roll out of the bloomcaster. More than 80 years of steel making in Newcastle will end, and thousands of jobs will be lost.
At a public meeting last year to discuss the closure, I pointed out to the steelworks' general manager, Bob Kirkby, that the plant breaks world records in steel output. He admitted this, but maintained that it was still "too expensive" to produce steel in Newcastle. The bottom line was profits — not enough profits, no steel making.
No steel making means no jobs for 2000 BHP employees and at least 500 maintenance contractors. Thousands of related jobs will also disappear — gone for the sake of BHP making 15% rather than 4% profit.
At the meeting, I urged steelworkers and the community to demand that BHP be nationalised.
Pro-ALP steel union officials counterpose to such a radical proposal schemes such as getting BHP's backing for development of the Steel River manufacturing site on BHP land near the present steelworks. Greens NSW Senate candidate John Sutton also advocates this project.
While the Steel River project may eventually create some manufacturing jobs, it is of small comfort to workers who will lose their jobs next year. Investors are more attracted by low wages and a compliant workforce than fantasies about eco-industries. The Steel River strategy relies on attracting private investment to create future jobs rather than action to keep existing jobs.
Sutton says he does not support the call for the nationalisation of BHP because it does not have wide community support. This does not sit well with the Greens' aim to set community standards on social justice and environment issues.
Community support for nationalisation can be won. Public opposition to the privatisation of Telstra and the privatisation of NSW electricity is a good starting point.
Many workers were won to the call for nationalisation of BHP during the 1982 elections for the Federated Ironworkers Association (FIA), then the major steel union.
Rank and file ironworkers, organised in the Militant Action Campaign (MAC), advocated the nationalisation of BHP in response to the massive retrenchments and forced retirements of 1982-1983. For union sub-branch positions in the Newcastle steelworks, the vote from working steelworkers was up to 30% for the MAC candidates. In the 1986 and '87 elections this vote increased.
In 1982, a mass meeting of steelworkers in Port Kembla passed a motion calling for the nationalisation of BHP. During the great takeover battles between Robert Holmes a'Court and the BHP directors in 1984, the Port Kembla branch called for BHP, as a key national resource, to be brought under public ownership.
In 1983, the front cover of the Metalworker, the journal of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, called for the nationalisation of BHP.
Support for nationalisation under worker's control can and must be won. Workers can, and should run industries. They do it every day.
BHP's bosses recognised this when, as a by-product of the ALP-ACTU Accord, they organised workers into teams to find ways to improve efficiency. This exercise was more about identifying jobs that could be cut rather than to giving workers any real control over the production process, but it showed that workers can also manage complex enterprises.
Only a nationalised, democratically controlled steel industry can offer the chance of making the industry environmentally friendly.
In my 20 years at the steelworks, I have noted that technicians and engineers are often passionate about finding ways to reduce industrial pollution. They could implement their ideas if industry was run for the benefit of society rather than for profits.
The publicly owned steel could be used to build the foundations for sorely needed new hospitals, schools and other public infrastructure.
Vast amounts of public money, workers' sweat and government guarantees have been ladled out to BHP over the years, yet BHP claims the steelworks is unprofitable.
The BHP board, the directors of the banks and investment institutions have already been compensated well through the hundreds of millions of dollars which they have creamed off in executive salaries, share issues and corporate perks. Their stock holdings could form the backbone of a restructured BHP.
The board of directors would be elected representatives of workers and the community, and it would set production and investment priorities based on social needs rather than private profits.
In the 1980s, the pro-ALP union officials who opposed nationalisation said workers had no option but to play the game BHP's way and accept some job losses to save the rest. The result is the closure of steel making in Newcastle.
But it does not have to end this way. If the unions, progressive political parties and Newcastle residents mobilised to demand that the incoming government take action to keep the plant open, workers could have hope.
A battle for nationalisation would be a difficult fight. We might not win it, but at least it would expose workers to new ways of organising society and production rather than continuing to be fed the delusion that only capitalists can create jobs and run industry.
[Geoff Payne, a rigger at the BHP steelworkers, is the Democratic Socialists' candidate for the federal seat of Newcastle.]