The possible closure of Tata Steel’s operations in Port Talbot casts a deep shadow over the area. There’s something familiar about this depressing story. The shipyards of the Clyde and the cotton mills of Manchester have faded. The coalfields of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire were all around me as I grew up in Chesterfield during the miners’ strike of 1984-85. Now the mining jobs are gone. Further afield, there are the job losses in the automobile production lines of Detroit, for the shoemakers of Kobe in Japan, or at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York.
塔塔鋼鐵公司(Tata Steel)可能關停塔爾博特港鋼廠的訊息，給這一地區蒙上了厚厚的陰影。這個令人沮喪的故事似曾相識。克萊德(Clyde)的造船廠、曼徹斯特的紡織廠都已衰敗。我在切斯特菲爾德(Chesterfield)長大，周圍有德比郡、諾丁漢郡以及南約克郡的煤田。1984-85年礦工罷工的時候我還是個孩子。如今，採煤工作早已消失。在世界其他地方，底特律的汽車生產線工人、日本神戶的製鞋工人以及紐約州羅切斯特(Rochester)的伊士曼柯達公司(Eastman Kodak)員工，也都失去了工作。