BAE to axe 1,100 jobs and close site

[bricolage]

Defence company BAE Systems (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/baesystems) is to axe 1,100 jobs and close one of its sites, unions said today.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) said the news was "bitterly disappointing" for workers and local communities.http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/15/bae-job-cuts-woodford-closure

I believe issues such as this highlight the often contradictory nature of multi-issue campaigning. As anti-militarists we consistently call to shut down or smash arms factories yet when they suffer, as with any company, it is of course the workers lowest in the ladder that suffer. In this case our loyalties thus lie with essentially reopening the same sites we want to see shut down due to our desire to see people reclaim their jobs.

How to people think we need to be approaching issues like this? Can we actively call for the closure of arms factories whilst at the same time opposing the job losses this inevitably causes? Maybe most importantly how we would look at this issue if the site and the job losses had been due to a strong anti-militarist campaign and not due to simple company 'streamlining'?

I have my own views on this but I'd be interested to hear what other people have to say.

[Stormshield]

Difficult question. In the ideal situation, the state would spend the money NOT spent on the weapons manufacturer on better health care, education and so on, creating a similar amount of job opportunities.

In the real world however, it's a different matter...:p

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I suppose ideally we'd want something like this to happen: http://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace
But I imagine that's only really possible if you have a really high level of generalised class consciousness in the first place.