This is where the boroughs elected representatives need to step up to the mark and play the role they were elected to fulfill, to serve the borough and its constituents. Whilst DEL and DETI act under the pretense of dovetailing local engineering into a safe market place with huge boosting from invest NI. It neglects to enlighten the public that such funding is merely piecemeal and whilst job creation in the area is announced on one hand, said companies are abusing the loophole in the current system to flaunt employment rights and making the agency workers unemployed. Albeit for short term, only to re employ the same Labour on lesser terms and conditions and at the same time complete the self fulfilling prophesy of job creation. This job creation is a myth. The tax payer is being fleeced and hood winked into believing that such government intervention is an investment into local economy and job sustaining. Its pandering into the hands of the capitalist shareholders who in turn are investing company profits into low cost and tragic working conditions in countries such as India and China. Theres no investment in northern Ireland on a five to ten year plan. What we have is a Trojan horse and phantom investment which in under a decade will see the migration of labour transfer from Ballymena to the above countries. It doesnt take a genius to know that the infantile stages of foreign manufacturing is already at play. All the big plants in Ballymena are already knee deep in investment and indeed manufacturing in countries where labour is sourced much cheaper. Its not borough men and women slaving over the machines in Poland, in a rubber press in India, or assembling kits of buses in China. Our devolved legislators are working hand in glove to ensure the capitalist maintains a wealth pool, to which he/she will be tax prisoners to the UK but the oversight is the gross unemployment suffered on home soil as a result. For every pound spent on investment to home enterprise awaiting investment, a thousand should be spent on re-skilling the labour. Whats the families to do in order to survive? Where will the disposable income appear from that sustains not just the domestic home, but the local businesses which are totally dependant on that surplus disposable income? The taxi drivers taking the labour to and from work, the hairdressers waiting on the wife getting her cut of salary to enjoy that night out, the publican depending on the Friday crew coming in for a few after a hard weeks work, the haulage companies whos drivers are dependent on carrying loads to and from said companies??? The after shocks which will be felt in the borough are disproportionate to the investment currently pumped in. And there is but one answer to what will be of industrial Ballymena....a town on its knees, with a soaring unemployment rate and crime rate to match. Why? The current system as elected buy the current populace have endorsed it. People forget about flags and traditions, poverty doesnt discriminate....you,me and our neighbors will feel this sting unless our voice is heard. Whilst we allow it, it will continue.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 00:59:45 +0000