nae pasaran
on worker actions and their impact
On a March day in 1974, engine inspector Bob Fulton arrived at work—a Rolls Royce factory in East Kilbride, 12 miles south east of Glasgow—with no idea that he was about to start an action that would all but ground an entire squadron of air force planes in Chile, 7500 miles away.
Six months earlier, on September 11th 1973, democratically elected Marxist Salvador Allende had been overthrown in a brutal coup d’etat led by General Augusto Pinochet, who was aided by the CIA as part of their plan to stop Chile becoming ‘another Cuba’. Trapped in La Moneda, the Chilean presidential palace, and surrounded by gunfire and explosions, Allende addressed his people live on radio before shooting himself dead, a final refusal to either surrender or to be used as a pawn in the games of his enemies. Pinochet, supported by his good friend Margaret Thatcher, would lead military rule in Chile for 17 years, a period marked by the murder of thousands of leftists, trade unionists and political critics, the torture of tens of thousands, and the internment of more than 80,000 in concentration camps. To those who believed in the socialist project and the freedom of civilians from military rule, Allende said this in his final speech:
Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society.
In the months that followed, Bob and other members of his workplace union—AUEW, which would eventually become part of Unite—had already voted unanimously, in their monthly meetings, to condemn the Chilean junta and support the Chile Solidarity Campaign, but they didn’t realise they would be in a position to directly affect the situation. That March morning, Bob arrived at work to find a compressor shaft on his table ready for inspection. He turned to card over and read one word: Chile.
Bob went to the foreman and the shop steward and told them he would not work on machines for the Chilean military. They realised that many of the parts already on the factory line were from Chilean Hawker Hunter planes, powered by Rolls-Royce jet engines. Bob and three of his colleagues—Robert Somerville, John Keenan and Stuart Barrie—decided they would “black” the engines, attaching labels to each of the Chilean parts, warning everyone in the factory that they should not work on them. Eventually four engines were placed outside the factory in crates, and all factory staff were told to steer clear. It was eventually concluded that these engines were likely from the very Hawker Hunters that attacked La Moneda, with Salvador Allende inside.
The four men could have been sacked for their action, but they felt that their union, which had engaged in strike action for many causes over the year, would support them, and they were right. In the resulting years the men and their community helped settle Chilean refugees in Lanarkshire, with the council giving them houses and even companies rallying around to get the families set up. The engines sat outside, untouched, for four years, until they were eventually stolen in the middle of the night—by, the men all agreed, the government. News came back to them that the engines had been returned to Chile. But after just one year outside, at the mercy of the elements, they would have been non-functional. After four years, all the engines were completely useless. The workers never thought they had had much effect on the situation in Chile—despite the hundreds of thank you letters they received over the years—but knew that they had, in some small way, won.
Felipe Bustos Sierra, the child of a Chilean journalist exiled to Brussels, grew up hearing the story of the the Scottish Rolls-Royce factory workers at Chilean solidarity nights, but as he grew up started to doubt the story, knowing that so many of these kind of tales are shared around political histories. It wasn’t until he started researching the story himself that he found the workers, and uncovered exactly how important the action had been.
While making the incredible documentary Nae Pasaran, Bustos Sierra not only connected with and got the story from the workers themselves, but also spoke to the former Chilean air force chief Fernando Rojas Vender, a man completely unrepentant for his actions, who revealed that the action in East Kilbride almost grounded the air force’s entire fleet of 29 Hawker Hunters; the factory was the only place in the world where the engines could be repaired. Though it’s contestable, the film argues that members of the air force who supported Allende and were imprisoned and tortured by Pinochet may have been freed in exchange for the returned engines, stolen from the factory. Perhaps most importantly, the image of the Hawker Hunters flying low over Santiago was etched in the minds of many Chileans as the moment the fight was irrevocably lost—so the idea that these planes had been defeated by ordinary workers was a powerful salve to an injured resistant population. A former staffer at the Chilean embassy revealed that he was asked to intimidate the trade unionists up in Scotland, so key had the image of their action become. The documentary ends with the four Scottish trade unionists being awarded the Chilean government’s highest honour for foreigners, which made them Comendadores under the Order of Bernardo O'Higgins. The impact of their action, it turns out, was enormous.
As I was writing this Substack, news broke that over 400 trade unionists had blockaded a Kent arms factory that provides weapons for the Israeli military. Travelling on coaches from London to the BAE Systems factory in the early hours of the morning, they prevented goods or staff from getting inside the factory and called for an immediate ceasefire. As one of the workers told the media:
As workers and trade unionists, we have the power to disrupt arms supplies to Israel. We’re taking this action because we will not stand by and let genocide happen with the backing of the British government and its arms industry.
This is far from the only action being taken in support of Palestinian lives. Three weeks ago in Belgium, transport workers’ unions refused to handle arms shipments bound for Israel, to be used against the Palestinian population. Indian trade unions have stated that Indian workers should not be used to replace Palestinian workers in Israel. Outside of the union movement, across the world sit ins and demonstrations are being undertaken by everyday people to pressure governments to call for a ceasefire. Many workers and citizens, like Bob and his colleagues in East Kilbride, are standing up and saying that they will not facilitate the murder of civilians abroad.
The impact—and intent—of such solidarity actions is of course necessarily outwards, towards a goal other than ourselves. But what’s not discussed enough is the benefit that they bring to yourself, to your own soul. As we are forced to watch while more than ten thousand people, including four thousand children, are killed in Gaza, as we witness our politician saying that a nation state has every right to murder civilians in the tens of thousands, we too suffer a moral injury; we are made complicit. What people are doing across the world, in this spirit of those East Kilbride workers, is to refuse this complicity, to bring their actions in line with their belief in the freedom of other people. We might never know what impact our actions will have, but there is every chance they will make a difference—even if it is only to ourselves and those around us, to prove that inaction is not the only choice.
What you can do:
Palestinian solidarity marches are happening every weekend across the country, whilst protestors are being vilified by the home secretary and the media. Go to your local protest and take a stand.
A friend made this tool to make it easier for you to tweet your representatives to ask them to call for a ceasefire. It takes two seconds to use.
The BDS movement asks us to boycott companies profiting from this violence. They have highlight the key boycott targets here.
Communication blackouts and lack of basic infrastructure are making it difficult for Gazans to remain connected to the rest of the world and to document what is happening to them. You can donate eSims (where you purchase a digital sim card for someone in Gaza) via several grassroots organisations, including the #ConnectingGaza campaign by Mirna El Helbawi. People have been overwhelmed by those trying to help so please do be patient and keep up to date with their social media appeals, as well as looking for others organising this.
Entire professions are making statements against the genocide in Gaza, including this one by over 600 journalists. These are powerful denunciations of the killing of innocent people, and easy to organise.
Even posting about the atrocities and sharing grassroots reporting on what is happening is important, at a time when Palestinian voices are being closed off and silenced; making it clear that regular people do not support their governments as they cheer on this killing is vital.
Whatever you do, please do something.
As Salvador Allende said, speaking to the people of Chile for one final time:
They have the power to overwhelm us, but social movements cannot be stopped by crime, or by force. History is ours. The people make history.
John Keenan died just eight weeks ago, and this post is dedicated to him.