Motion no: 31
Northern Ireland’s manufacturing industry employs more than 85,000 people and contributes the bulk of our exports (£7 billion a year) and 14% of our total GVA.
Conference notes with dismay that despite the overriding significance of the sector we still do not have a dedicated Manufacturing strategy for the region. The last Executive failed to bring forward a dedicated strategy – instead bringing forward a broader industrial strategy that included tourism and finance services – with very little specific policy recommendations for Manufacturing.
Northern Ireland’s manufacturing sector has suffered a series of brutal closures and job-losses over the past few years – more than seven thousand high value added jobs have been lost. While new jobs have been created in the economy they have not been at the same value as the manufacturing jobs we have lost.
Conference notes that in the absence of needed action from our politicians it has been workers, through their trade unions, who have taken action to safeguard jobs. We applaud the strength of the campaign led by the workforce and their trade unions in Bombardier that was instrumental in defeating the imposition of punitive 292% tariffs by the protectionist Trump administration.
We demand a dedicated Manufacturing Strategy for Northern Ireland to set out the actions and investment needed to grow our economy. This should include actions to deliver the apprenticeships actually needed by workers seeking a career in the sector, sub-sectoral growth strategies and delivery structures to secure growth across the entirety of Northern Ireland, to charter a course through the changes that will come through automation and further globalised competition, and to meet both the challenges and opportunities of Brexit.
The voice of unionised industrial workers must be central to the development of such a strategy and its delivery must empower them, both in the workplace and through the ongoing delivery mechanisms.
