Shipbuilding - EU rules strangle the Clyde
WORKERS, DEC 2006 ISSUE
The deliberate neglect of shipbuilding strategy in the face of EU-wide compulsory tendering and procurement rules has forced the last remaining independent commercial shipbuilder on the River Clyde into its third year of severe losses and lack of orders. Last year the Scottish Executive colluded in the loss of Ferguson Marine's contracts to a cheaper Polish shipyard in Gdansk (where is Solidarnosc now?).
Last autumn one of the very few real solidarity meetings to try to bring together the public with all the unions involved was held in the town hall in Port Glasgow where the yard is based. Building a campaign in support of the yard was agreed and now that campaign will have to be renewed and stepped up.
Unusually, the meeting was chaired by the regional chairman of the Musicians' Union and called by the Campaign Against Euro Federalism – a symptom of the lack of organisation on the ground and of the demoralisation of the local community since the struggle at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in 1971, when workers occupied the yard to save their jobs.
But they are hanging on – 272 workers are still engaged on building a car ferry for the Largs-Cumbrae route; but beyond 2007 the 104-year old yard has no major orders.