GMB: Scotland needs ships and the skills to build them

 Shipbuilding in Scotland is crucial to our national security in an uncertain world and must be supported, according to GMB Scotland.

The union warned global security risks demand ministers keep more engineering and manufacturing contracts in Scotland instead of sending them around the world.

Speaking at the STUC Congress, Alex Logan, GMB convenor at Ferguson Marine, said the ability to build ships is crucial to any island nation and far more must be done to protect Scotland’s industrial capability.

Logan, who has been building ships at the Port Glasgow yard for more than 40 years, highlighted the recent decision to build Royal Navy tugs for the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the other side of the world while Fergusons needs work just a few miles away.

He said: “Yards in the UK were not even invited to bid for the £200 million contract to build our own navy’s support fleet. In what world does that make sense?

“Why is taxpayers’ money being sent around the world when it could support our industry, workers, apprentices, supply chains, and communities?”

GMB Scotland has warned the social value of the work to Scottish workers and their communities is not being properly weighed or valued before contracts are sent abroad and called for more direct awards.

Logan welcomed the Scottish Government’s recent decision to directly award four contracts to Fergusons, the last commercial shipyard on the Clyde, but said a pipeline of work is needed to secure the future of the publicly-owned yard.

He said: “We are an island nation. Scotland has 11,000 miles of coastline.

“Yet, successive governments have allowed our shipbuilding industry, and the skills it needs, to wither.

“That must change and urgently. The world is a more uncertain place than it was even a few months ago.

“We can no longer rely on anyone to defend our country but ourselves. The world is changing and our willingness to create and protect skilled industrial jobs and apprenticeships, must change even faster.”

Speaking on the last day of the STUC Congress in Dundee’s Caird Hall, he highlighted the UK Government’s delayed Defence Investment Plan as an opportunity to support UK industry and jobs.

He said: “The promise of new work at my own yard was overdue but welcome and badly needed.

“It will let skilled workforce rebuild a reputation for excellence after ten bruising years.

“But these contracts show direct awards are possible and our shipyards and our supply chains, need many more.

“We have, for years, sent huge contracts around the world to low-wage economies. Work that could and should have created jobs and social value in this country was sent abroad while our industrial capability and skills base shriveled.

“That must change. There are contracts worth billions of pounds on the stocks right now and ministers’ default must be direct awards to UK firms not international competition.

“Once established, that secure pipeline of work will give our engineering yards the confidence to invest in their future with on-site training centres creating new generations of skilled apprentices.”

The STUC supported the GMB motion calling for direct awards of public contracts to shipyards and for UK and Scottish governments to support new Apprentice Training Centres in yards across Scotland.