Socialist and trade unionist Jim Murray reflects on the decision by Vickers Ltd to close their Elswick tank production factory in Newcastle in September 1982.

Hilary Wainwright in her 1989 obituary for Gateshead native Jim Murray described him as 'an independent socialist'. While his intellect, speaking and organisational skills could have seen him rise through the ranks of both trade union and Labour movements, he chose instead to remain on the shop floor to support his fellow workers. Born in 1929, he left school at 14 and spent two years at sea before becoming an Engineer's apprentice at Clark Chapman's for another seven years. Between 1961 and 1979 Jim was the shop steward's convenor at Vickers Elswick in Newcastle which produced tanks. At the time when Jim joined Vickers it employed 15,000 unionised workers in 26 separate unions, with 40-50 separate workshops. This fragmentation of union representation was a problem which Jim quickly realised needed to be addressed and so worked to develop independent shop-floor organisation. This led to the establishment of union 'Combine Committees' where shop stewards from different unions would get together to discuss not only the issues that affected them all, but also challenge the companies they worked for. By the early 1970s Jim was a leader of a movement of shop stewards in engineering companies along the Tyne. Working together they not only supported each other, but also organised against legislations of both Labour and Conservative governments. Between 1973-75 they helped develop new industrial policies for the Labour Party. Although the Elswick works closed in 1982, Jim continued to petition Vickers to find alternative products to make other than tanks. In 1984 he visited Iran where many of the tanks produced by Vickers were heading. He returned disgusted at the social problems facing the country made worse, he believed, because of the tanks he had helped to build and thus 'was a total waste of craftmanship'.

A discussion by Jim Murray of his early life; the apprenticeship system on Tyneside; the early development of industrial relations at Vickers Armstrong; the beginning of the rundown of Vickers; his election as shop steward and then as works convenor; the power of the shop floor; the formation of the Vickers combine of shop stewards; industrial relations in a multi-national company; the Tyne Conference of shop stewards committees; the impact of the Revolution in Islam on the attempt to save the Elswick Works; the future of the Vickers Combine; and the lessons of the union defeat over the closure of Elswick; and, a tour of the Elswick works led by Jim Murray during its demolition; with an epilogue in which the devastation of the Scotswood Road and the decision to build a hypermarket on the Elswick site instead of the promised Industrial and Science Park is condemned.