State election in March as SA workers face jobs crisis

Vanguard February 2014 p. 8
Ned K.

The SA parliamentary election outcome on 15 March this year will give little hope to thousands of blue and white collar workers in SA.

Neither the current Labor government nor the Liberal Party “Opposition” have any answers to the economic crisis facing working people. This crisis will intensify as the closure of General Motors operations at the northern suburb of Elizabeth will add to a manufacturing industry in the state already in crisis.

According to research done by the manufacturing union, AMWU, 1 in every 5 SA manufacturing workers lost their jobs between 2008 and 2012. The number of jobs lost was 19,600, a 20.7% reduction, compared with a 9.9% reduction (105,900) manufacturing jobs nationally in the same period.

The AMWU research predicted that if this trend continued in the state, a further 15,000 manufacturing jobs over the next five year period 2013 to 2018 would be lost. This estimate was made prior to General Motors’ announced closure of the Elizabeth car plant by 2017..

Research by John Spoehr and others from the University of Adelaide demonstrates that these job losses in manufacturing are concentrated in the western and northern suburbs of Adelaide, where unemployment is already as high as 20% in some suburbs and 9.1% overall. Added to this is underemployment: workers who want and need to work more hours per week to exist with a minimum of dignity (see State of South Australia –Turbulent Times, edited by John Spoehr, 2013).

Even if the ‘mining boom’ took off in SA with the expansion of Olympic Dam and/or other mines, this will not solve the high unemployment crisis caused by mainly multinational corporations’ decisions to continue to scale down manufacturing in the state. In 2012, mining in SA employed 12,953 people. Manufacturing employed 74,763. Both Labor and Liberal Party leaders in SA still talk of mining as a potential saviour, but they have both shifted their attention to the defence industry at Port Adelaide and nearby northern suburbs. These industries do employ a sizeable number of the 74,763 manufacturing jobs in the state, but the decision-making of where these defence products are made and how many are made is in the hands of multinational companies.

Neither state Labor or Liberal Party leaders confront this central question of ownership of the economic lifelines of the state and where economic power currently lies.

The political leader who boldly mobilises the people’s support for a publicly owned manufacturing base in SA will have widespread support leading up to the election.

However we should not hold our breath waiting for such an announcement!