GMB: Rebuild ferry system for islands and industry

Scotland’s ferry system must be rebuilt to protect island communities and support shipbuilding, according to GMB Scotland.

The union is calling for reform of the maritime transport network claiming a simpler structure will improve services and accountability while creating skilled jobs.

GMB told the STUC Congress in Dundee today [WEDNESDAY] the expected award of a new ten-year contract to ferry operators Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) is an opportunity to deliver better services for islanders and secure Scotland’s maritime and shipbuilding industries.

The call for change comes amid escalating concern over the age and reliability of the CalMac fleet and ongoing controversy over rising costs and delays to two ferries, the Glen Sannox, which is now in service, and Glen Rosa, which is still to be completed.

GMB Scotland, the biggest union at Ferguson Marine, the publicly-owned yard building the ferries, said the relentless focus on the troubled contracts has become a diversion from wider concerns around the organisations shaping Scotland’s lifeline maritime transport links.

Alex Logan, the union’s convenor at the Port Glasgow shipyard, told delegates Scotland’s ferry system should be restructured to protect island communities with Fergusons becoming “a cornerstone of an industrial strategy to provide Scotland’s publicly-owned ferry fleet.”

He said: “There have been serious mistakes made with Rosa and Sannox but they were not made by the workers.

“Our yard has been building good ships for more 100 years and, with vision and ambition, we could be building them for 100 more.”

Fergusons failed to win a £175m contract for seven small CalMac ferries awarded to a Polish yard, Remontowa, last month despite the Scots yard building a third of CalMac’s current 36-strong fleet.

Logan said: “In an island nation like Scotland, why is a publicly owned yard not building ships for a publicly owned ferry company?

“Why are ministers in Edinburgh allowing contracts to be sent to Poland when they have a skilled, capable and committed workforce along the M8?

“It is absurd but only the latest example of how our public procurement system works.

“There is no joined up thinking on our ferries as politicians outsource decisions to unaccountable quangos where islanders and workers struggle to be heard.”

Currently, the West Coast ferry network is shaped by three organisations, Transport Scotland, acting for the Scottish Government, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), and CalMac but critics claim the system has failed to deliver for islanders or taxpayers.

GMB is calling for a review to establish if ferry operator CalMac should be merged with CMAL, which owns and commissions ferries and terminals, and take sole charge of the fleet while working closely with Fergusons to commission and deliver small ferries.

Logan, addressing delegates at the Caird Hall in Dundee, on the final day of the STUC Congress, said: “There is a clear opportunity for Ferguson Marine to serve as a cornerstone of Scotland’s manufacturing base and ferry supply chain.

“The workers who have been used as a political football for a decade now deserve that opportunity to be seized.

“It makes sense for our islands, for taxpayers and for the future of shipbuilding in Scotland.”

Delegates unanimously supported the GMB Scotland motion calling on the Scottish Government to make a direct award of the next small ferries to Ferguson Marine; reform procurement rules to ease the commissioning of ships from Scots yards; and review CalMac, CMAL and Transport Scotland to establish if restructuring could improve services for islanders and bolster maritime industries.