“I have been made redundant before and it is a terrible blow; redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless.” Billy Connolly
Billy Connolly was a ship builder in the shipyards of the Clyde. The Scottish river gained a reputation for being the best location for shipbuilding in the British Empire, and grew to become the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centre.Clydebuilt became an industry benchmark of quality, and the river's shipyards were given contracts for prestigious ocean-going liners as well as warships, including the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth 2 in later years. Today, although regeneration of the area into housing is underway - sadly the harbour itself is, to put it mildly, an eyesore filled with sunken wrecks.
Shipbuilding to me is the symbol of industrial decline in the UK. , the tattered remnants of these once major employers are a haunting reminder of how thins can simply rot away. This time last century the shipyards of the UK produced more tonnage in naval and merchant ships than the rest of the world put together. By the close of the century when British luxury cruise companies took delivery of some of the largest cruise ship in the world... not one was built in the UK. This century our navy needs two new aircraft carriers... and they will be built in France. In my lifetime i have see our nation unable to continue manufacturing goods in almost every one of the heavy industries. I have seen the docks of my city close, the mines of my county close, the steelworks where by first boyfriends father worked close, and the car plant where my uncle worked close. My heart went out to the shipbuilders, the miners, the steelworkers, the car makers... unfortunate victims of the changing tides... Britain doesn’t make things anymore... we’re not a blue collar economy any more.
The docks where I used to watch the huge banana boats come in has been redeveloped into a white collar trading area, the colliery locomotive that used to haul coal become a tourist attraction, the steel plant where my first boyfriends father added nickel to ore is now a recording studio, my uncles car plant is in the process of become a retail centre and a hotel. The real price of industrial decline is never paid by the landscape (even Clydeside is being redeveloped), it’s not really paid by a nation’s loss of prestige in an area they once dominated.
It’s paid in something much more poignant. In people branded as surplus to requirements, not what we need to go forward, of no use, redundant.
As Billy Connelly said... it makes you think you ARE useless.
Skilled men, with crafts honed over generations... suddenly of no use.
Well those days are behind us. A new generation fill the work place. And how the work place has changed. Less than a third of people in the UK work jobs involve making things (manufacturing). Almost three quarters of the workforce are involved in tertiary jobs (providing a service). Yet we are no more immune from being branded surplus to requirements, not what we need to go forward, of no use, redundant than our blue collared siblings.White collar redundancies are now the flavour of the day. Heavy job losses in the business services sectors are filling our Job Centres with jobless managers and professionals. Over 1 million white collar workers have found themselves subject to an unfavourable ‘consultancy processes’ designed to highlight which members of staff should be thrown overboard and which to keep for ballast. And found themselves to be jetsam.
Dictionaries are a wonderful source of getting over the point:
jetsam - the part of a ship's equipment or cargo that is thrown overboard to lighten the load in a storm. Unwanted material or goods that have been thrown overboard from a ship and washed ashore, esp. material that has been discarded to lighten the vessel.
And that nautical theme brings me back to that ex-shipbuilder Billy Connelly... “...redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless”.
Modern day redundancies are designed to do just that. Consultancy processes are designed to make it quite clear It’s not the way the country is trading that has cost you your employment (the whole place isn’t closing down) it’s YOU. They’ll be keeping the guy on the next desk. The most popular reasoning being that businesses can slash costs by getting rid of long-serving and, most significantly, more expensive staff. Loyalty and success have become liabilities in a world where senior management incompetency’s are being disguised behind a global economic crisis.Being made redundant when the industry has gone is one thing... but being made redundant when quite simply those your trust to represent the source of your income have messed up....is something else.
Yesterday I was advised of yet for redundancies at a former employer of mine who is still navigating the ship through stormy waters and casting double figures of jetsam as it sails. Good people most of them, loyal, successful and totally undeserving of the fate they suffered. I know they’ll put a brave face on it and do whatever they can to stay afloat while never ceasing to look out for a better ship. But I also know that no matter how they rationalise it and no matter how brave the face they put on it there will be horrors ahead. I know because I’ve been there. I know that because the whole industry didn’t disappear, it will feel like it is just you. I know that you will feel useless on so many different levels. I know that when something happens to you personally it is almost impossible to take it any other way but personally. I know that they will find that getting new employment will be an uphill struggle the magnitude of they had never invisaged. I also know that they will come through.
Being on a good ship sailed by an incompetent master of the vessel means that it was NEVER going to get to its destination no matter how well built the ship. It doesn’t matter how well you played your part if the officers can’t play theirs to the same ability. It’s actually a gift to be thrown overboard.
You’ve got better to come than being on board when THEIR ship finally sinks...
Over to Billy for a closing word on life after redundancy:
“The world's a wonderful place... I just think that some people are pretty badly represented...they viewed me as just a welder who knew a few jokes. Life for me now is great. I`m a very f***in` wealthy person, I`m married to a very beautiful woman and I get laid with monotonous regularity.”
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