force. Those most likely to lose their jobs in the past and in the 1980's are:
- the youngest and the oldest in the labour market; - women;
- people of ethnic minority origin; - people in seasonal work;
- those living in traditional areas of manufacturing industry; - unskilled and semi-skilled workers .
Whilst it is true that many more skilled and white collar workers joined the dole queues between 1979 and 1985 and now represent some 25% of the flow of unemployment, it is still semi-skilled and unskilled blue collar workers who have been hardest hit by the recession, constituting just under 50% of the total flow of the unemployed [Social Trends 1986 : 73] and up to 75% of the long term unemployed, standing at 1,316,750 LThe Guardian 29/11/86]. It is important, for reasons which become very clear later in the study, to differentiate between the 'flow' and 'stock' of unemployment. It has been shown, for example, that unskilled manual workers are six times as likely to become long term unemployed as non manual workers. Smith 1 1980] found that the chances of becoming Long Term Unemployed in any one year rose from 0.3%, amongst professionals and managers, to 2% amongst higher supervisory grades, to 6-7 % amongst lower supervisory grades, skilled and non manual professions, up to 18% amongst the unskilled.,
Daniel t1976 and 1979] points to the concentration of young and old amongst the unemployed. Indeed he argued that,
'age was the most important single indicator of whether an unemployed worker could find a job'
[1979 : 7].
This is also confirmed in Social Trends 11986 : 733. The reasons for this are clear: the young are seen to be unemployable if they do not have qualifications and older workers are viewed as a less good 'investment', or seen to have redundant skills and a lack of motivation.
Thus, redundancy and unemployment have hit those areas hardest where our traditional manufacturing industries have been based ; new technologies have erased a large number of skilled and semi-skilled jobs from the labour process; government economic and social policies which have squeezed the economy have contributed to this decline. Those who have suffered most are the old and the young, the unskilled and semi skilled, women and those of ethnic minority backgrounds. Taking all these factors into consideration, it is little surprise that B.S.C., nationally and locally has suffered particularly badly and that many of those displaced in this shakeout are having great difficulties in finding alternative work.
II : 4 : 2 The Declining Fortunes oi B.S.C. : Nationally and Locally
’Sheffield or Sheafield stands in the southern part of the Vest Riding of South Yorkshire where the two rivers Don and Sheaf meet, to which last it owes its name. This town was anciently famous for making the iron heads of arrows and is celebrated by Chaucer 300 years ago for the blades of knives worked there; by degrees it hath much improved in all manner of Cutler's Ware. The situation is delightful1 and somewhat uncommon, it being seated on a round hill in the midst oi a valley which is surrounded by many higher hills. This supplies it with many Valuable Falls of water necessary for carrying on the manufacture of the place. This advantage of streams to turn their mills, together with great plenty of coal in its neighbourhood render it perhaps the fittest place in the Kingdom for the business which is here carried on.'
tSamuel ana Nathan Buck's National Prospectus, April 15th 1745, Garden Court No. 1, Kiddle Temple, London. From a print of Sheffield in 1745]
Unemployment in Yorkshire and Humberside trebled between 1978 and 1986 and is still rising, as redundancies in both steel and more recently mining continue, with a knock-on effect to local economies in this region. Couth Yorkshire had until recently enjoyed a good employment record in national terms and locally LWalker, 1980 : 773. Any understanding of the collapse of the labour market in South Yorkshire must recognise the reliance that Rotherham and Sheffield have long had on the steel industry.
As long ago as 1830, Sheffield was a flourishing industrial town with a population of some 92,000 people, the majority of whom worked in various forms of metal manufacture and allied trades. t3'J Even at this time slumps in trade had a severe effect on iron and steel industries in the local area. In the recession of 1837, only 4,500 men out of a total workforce of 25,000 enjoyed full time employment. A journalist later commented in 'The Iris' of October 11th 1842 that,
'The oldest inhabitants of Sheffield cannot remember a crisis or calamity so general... the labouring classes have been thrown into abject destitution in spite of every effort they have made to support themselves.'
[Quoted in Wickham, 1957 : 881
Between 1843 and 1873, the Iron and Steel industry in South Yorkshire enjoyed a period of expansion and development. The discovery of new smelting processes [Bessemer 1856 and Siemer 18663 and advances in metallurgical processes, combined with a boom in demand from the railways and the armed forces, marked a time of 'breathtaking advance' [Wickham, 1957 : 943.
Even at this time Sheffield specialised in steel production. Of 0.62 million tons of steel produced in Britain in 1855, 0.55 were produced in South Yorkshire in 1,500 crucible furnaces [Vaizey, 1974 : Chapter 13. A series of trade slumps, 1876-78, 1885-86 and 1892-93 led to redundancies and marginalised employment for many men and women in local industries. This was caused by a fall in demand from the railways and armed forces, unfavourable tariff barriers in foreign markets and increasingly competitively priced imports from the more professional and
technologically advanced Americans [ibid: Chapter 103. It was only in the build up to World War I and for its duration that national and local steel industries picked up again.
The history of the local steel industry corresponds closely with that of the national steel industry in Britain. The period from 1815 to 1918 was marked by the emergence of small localised concerns, their rapid growth and amalgamation often along vertical lines [Coal and Iron Ore Producers -» Iron and Steel Producers -> Shipyards/Railways] . These were, for the most part, family concerns, technologically backward compared to the Germans and Americans and highly prone to fluctuations in the national economy. It has been observed by a number of commentators that at least since 1870 Britain has been systematically slow at widely adapting new processes and new products even when these were invented,and sometimes even manufactured, in Britain [ N.B.D.O., 1986 3 . From their earliest days the iron and steel industries in Britain have been highly cyclical in nature.
Although there was an expansion in trade after World War I, there was little long term planning and minimal technical innovation . Even the biggest plants such as Templeborough, often worked at under 50% capacity in the 1920's and 1930's [ Vaizey. op. cit : 263. This led to increased unemployment in the local area, prompting several studies of the effects of worklessness [eg: Owen, 19323. The world recession meant virtual stagnation for the local steel industry in the 1930's and it was only in the build up to war that its fortunes were revived. The election of the Labour party in 1945, committed to Keynsian demand - management economics, full employment, the welfare state and
nationalisation marked the start of the modern phase of the national and local steel industry.
The 1945 White Paper, produced by the Frankes Committee was the blueprint for the development of Britain's Steel industries up to nationalisation in 1967, despite a long period of conservative political control between 1951 and 1964. Although parts of the steel industry were nationalised in 1949, the conservatives reversed this in 1951 - only a small part remained nationalised in Sheffield. Despite massive investment and increased output to post war records, t£l,000m and 25.5m tonnes in 1964], there were still problems of obsolete technology and over capacity as well as increasing competition from imported steel. Profits for the steel industry as a whole fell from £141m in 1961 to £23m in i967 LBryner et.al, 1982]. The Wilson administration completed the nationalisation programme begun in 1945 and established the British Steel Corporation under Lord Melchett, replacing the British Iron and Steel Federation. On the 28th of July 1968 the 14 largest private steel companies, including the United Steel Company, Browns and Fox's, Steel Peach & Tozer, West Rotherham Works and Hadfields locally, were brought into public ownership. Sheffield/Rotherham, with its Special Steels division, became part of the Midland group.
1968 also marked a major rationalisation programme under the direction of the Social and Regional Policy Department. This projected ten year programme was called 'The New Deal for Steel', and aimed to improve productive capacities and reduce the workforce from 260,000 to 180,000. The impact of this programme, which was greatly accelerated in the 1980's under McGregor's chairmanship, has had a marked effect on the
local steel industry, where in 1977, 33.5% of the local workforce worked in steel, metal and allied trades [City Trends, 1981 : 23].
The decision by the [then] Industry Secretary, Keith Joseph, to make B.S.C. profitable led to a rapid acceleration of the rationalisation and, latterly, privatisation programme, continued by his successors Tebbit and Jenkins. This rundown mirrors a rapid decline in the European community as a whole. In 1974 all the steelmaking nations in the E.E.C. employed 796,000 men and women in steel and allied trades; this fell to 480,000 in 1980 and is estimated to fall to about 100,000 in 1987 [The Guardian : 8/7/85]. Between 1975 and 1986, 110,000 jobs were lost in the British Steel industry and approximately 33,000 have been lost in South Yorkshire over the same period. c 1 C) ,[See Figure 4 over] The key events are as follows :
B.S.C. AND PRIVATE SECTOR MAJOR CLOSURES SINCE 1979
HADFIELDS [2,700] AURORA [1,500J
O.H. STEEL FOUNDRIES [860] NEW STAINLESS [633]
RIVER DON WORKS [275] NEEPSEND [600] HABERSHONS [200] NAPIER STEELS [118] EFFINGHAM [82] FLATHER BROWNS [250] TINSLEY PARK [C.1000]
STOCKSBRIDGE [709] APRIL 1986 : B.S.C. PRIVATISATION [4,000] OTHER MAJOR JOB LOSSES SINCE 1979 FIRTH BROWN [2,800] FORGEMASTERS [1,000] A. LEE GROUP [1,000] DGNCASTERS [837] TINSLEY WIRE [500] SHARDLOWS [233] SANDERSON/KAYSER [286] SPENCER CLARK [162] 61 -