aerospace - outsourced to the eu
WORKERS, JULY 2003 ISSUE
Early in June, the Blair government tore up its agreement with BAE Systems to supply the RAF with 30 new Hawk training aircraft, the only fixed-wing plane designed, developed and built in Britain. It ordered the work to be put out to foreign tender, in line with EU policy. BAE has already spent £30 million on the work.
At a government press conference, called, ironically, "to highlight cooperation between the government and industry on the aerospace sector's future", Sir Dick Evans, BAE's chairman, said, "I don't think the British taxpayer is in the business of subsidising foreign companies to compete in our home markets." Under EU rules, that is exactly what happens.
Evans argued that the government's action was just the sort of move that had led to the Nimrod debacle, which lost the company millions of pounds a few years back, and endangers the jobs of 470 skilled workers at the BAE Systems plant in Brough, Humberside.
Winning the RAF order is crucial to BAE's ability to win orders from overseas customers for 400 planes, meaning about 15 years' production at Brough. Without these export orders, the whole plant's future, and the jobs of all of its 1,900 workers, would be at risk.