The trade union Unite has called for guarantees that shipbuilding and repair contracts will remain in the United Kingdom following the merger that has brought Cammell Laird and the A&P yards under the ownership of the Cornwall-based maritime group Balaena, the union has said.
Unite, which describes itself as the principal union in shipbuilding, gave a cautious welcome to the deal, in which Balaena acquired APCL Group to create a large British-based ship repair company spanning shipyards at Birkenhead, Tyneside and Falmouth alongside Balaena’s existing facilities in Gibraltar and Padstow.
The combined group will operate twelve dry docks, employ more than two thousand people across the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean, and bring extensive current Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary work under one roof.
The union’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, used the announcement to press its long-running argument against sending naval work abroad. The merger, she said, “demonstrates the absurdity of sending shipbuilding and repair work overseas when the best yards and skilled workers are here in the UK.” The government, she added, “must now stop needlessly risking jobs and endangering skills by failing to buy British.” Unite, she said, would work with Balaena and other UK shipyards to help secure and grow contracts providing well-paid jobs and apprenticeships in local communities.
Unite’s national officer Rhys McCarthy welcomed the deal as positive news for the union’s members across the yards, saying it provided job security. The integration of Balaena’s facilities in Gibraltar and Padstow with APCL’s established infrastructure at Tyneside, Birkenhead and Falmouth, he said, would create “one of the world’s most capable ship repair and shipbuilding groups with some of the best shipbuilders in the world.”
The yards changing hands carry significant Ministry of Defence work. Cammell Laird on the Mersey holds a steady stream of Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary dry docking and refit work and built the polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, while A&P Falmouth has long served as a principal refit yard for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s tankers and support ships, and A&P Tyne has carried out fabrication for offshore energy and defence programmes.
Consolidating them with Gibdock in Gibraltar, a regular port of call for Royal Navy ships in the Mediterranean, creates a repair network across several of the routes the fleet uses most.
Unions good idea right intentions but on the whole bloody hard to work with and some failed industrys are because of thier bloody mindedness, kit shouldonly be ordered if need and if its better in cost etc to build it here not just to keep people happy thats a mistake that governments do over and over and military loose out due cost over runs, delays or not great build quality.