28 August 2025
Iconic bottle kilns at the Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke. Workers are fighting for the modern ceramics industry, not a vision of the past. Photo Workers.
The GMB trade union has launched a campaign, the Potter’s Pledge, to save what is left of the ceramics industry in which Britain once led the world. It’s a vital sector, supplying and supporting other industries.
The Potteries, around Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, are the centre of the industry. But the area has been battered by wave upon wave of closures, most recently of Royal Stafford and Moorcroft earlier this year.
Failure
Global undercutting, dumping and British government failure to provide energy security all threaten the future of those companies that remain. Ceramics manufacturing depends on reliable supplies of gas and electricity. Past failure by pottery companies to invest in modern plant, keeping with coal-fired kilns for far too long, cost the industry dearly.
The government has made some concessions to lower electricity costs through the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme and the British Industry Supercharger. This is not enough, as there’s nothing on gas costs.
‘…demands that government and businesses procure ceramics from British, unionised companies.’
Gas, as a GMB motion to the 2025 TUC Congress points out, is the industry’s main form of energy supply. The union’s pledge also demands that government and businesses procure ceramics from British, unionised companies.
The industry body Ceramics UK condemned the government’s recent Industrial Strategy. It said that the industry had been misled: it is mentioned just once in the strategy’s 160 pages. Yet that document prominently features the financial services and business services sectors.
Essential
Ceramics is not just about pots and plates. The sector is an essential supplier to many other industries, ranging from aerospace and electronics to agriculture – including battery manufacture and other aspects of clean energy.
Both Ceramics UK and GMB have long pointed out the industry’s importance and vulnerability, even before the recent jump in energy costs.
Values
The GMB campaign will also support other industries which supply the ceramics sector. The motion to the TUC, meeting in Brighton from 7 to 10 September, states clearly that “leaving unionised UK industries to collapse while importing what they make from other countries with lower labour standards is against trade union values”.
The TUC has its own umbrella campaign, “Futureproofing Manufacturing”. This focuses on net zero, decarbonisation and a just transition. The British ceramics industry will need a more positive approach than that to survive and thrive.