Strike action involving 600 workers looming at Coulport and Faslane.
Unite the union confirmed today that its membership at Coulport and Faslane on the Clyde will be balloted on industrial action in a dispute over pay.
The dispute involves 600 Unite members employed by Babcock Marine (Clyde) Ltd who undertake specialist services for the UK’s nuclear deterrent submarines.
The offer,s ay the union, amounts to a seven per cent increase backdated to August 2023, and three per cent for the next pay round effective from August this year. Unite’s membership have emphatically rejected the two year pay offer by 99 per cent. Unite maintains the offer represents a substantial pay cut as the true rate of inflation, RPI, stood at 9.1 per cent when the pay increase was due in August last year.
The ballot which runs for two weeks opens tomorrow (21 May) and closes on 11 June.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said:
“Unite’s membership at Coulport and Faslane fully deserve a fair pay increase. Babcock Marine is a wealthy company that can easily afford to make a decent offer to its workers. Pay offers which in real terms amount to sizeable pay cuts, just won’t cut it. We will support our members’ fight for better jobs, pay and conditions all the way.”
Unite is highlighting that Babcock Marine has amassed nearly £45m in profit after tax over the 2018 to 2022 period (£6.4m – 2022; £10.4m – 2021; £7.3m – 2020; £8.5m – 2019 and £12.1m – 2018).
James O’Connell, Unite industrial officer, added:
“Babcock Marine need to get serious about its pay offer or face significant disruption as a result of industrial action. Babcock Marine must take the opportunity to make a decent offer, but they should be under no illusions as to the determination of our members to get what they deserve.”
Babcock Marine was awarded a contract in March 2021 by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide services for the nuclear weapon system at Coulport, as well as the Strategic Weapon Support Building (SWSB) Faslane.
The Future Maritime Support Programme (FMSP) is estimated to be worth around £3.5bn and will run until March 2026. The programme includes UK naval base operations at HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport.
Given 13 years of s**t pay deals and the never ending Tory excuse of austerity I’m amazed we don’t have more people striking. Pay rates in civilian MOD roles like the RFA are disgusting.
I’m all for give people the right money for the right job, I’m even pro universal basic income but when we’re sepnding a massive 12% of my tax and NI on debt both it shows Tory and Labour need to have proper plan. Let me say that again 12% of tax doing nothing of any good for the country. Neither Labour or Tories have plan to reduce it and both support the policies that have put us in this mess.
The debt (in the most part) is due to Covid. It took the UK 40-50 years to extract itself from the WW2 debt. I’m not sure I would expect anything different from Covid & the Financial Crisis. S**t happens.
It’s amazing how people in the modern world can compare the “struggles” of the financial crisis and COVID to World War II and justify government spending and the debt burden on future generations to justify short term consumption during minor crisis.
At no time during the last 300 years has the British government ever taken on such debts for financial crisis and health crisis despite being faced with infinitely worse situations.
I don’t care what Govt was in during Covid,did you disagree with cutting the NHS debt by some £13.4b,furlough payments? The cost of Covid ranges from £310-410b according to whatever figures you look at. Labour even wanted us in lockdown longer!
now I don’t know about you but I have to pay my debts back so did you think the government would be able to just write those figures off?
Yes I disagreed with lockdown and the furlough payments after the first lockdown.
we’d save a fortune by slashing ‘sucker Britain’s’ foreign aid. Google where it goes, get a grasp on reality then do the same with where the t v licence money goes, you’ll never watch strictly again .
Not quite sure what you were anticpating with Covid but without furlough the economy would have imploded. No Doctors, nurses, care homes, military, banks, shops or frankly very much. Same goes for the financial crisis if the banks are f**ked then people’s employers have no money to pay people, no income means no income tax which means no public services. They would have solved this in previous centuries by letting everyone die and then seeing what was left.
We dealt with deadlier viruses than COVID before without locking the economy down. Also all economies in Europe dealt with COVID and did not add anything like as much debt as we did.
But most of the damage to British finances was done between 2010 and 2020.
😂 Early projections of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted federal governments to action. One critical report, published on March 16, 2020, received international attention when it predicted 2 200 000 deaths in the USA and 510 000 deaths in the UK without some kind of coordinated pandemic response. Now clearly the death rate was significantly less than that – however we had a coordinated pandemic response. Not only that other Countries all had a pandemic response to some degree. Countries like New Zealand managed very well however they were effectively able to shut the entire country to all traffic. Heathrow &… Read more »
fat cats are still doing well, the water companies making record profits and still pump sg*t into our rivers and beaches it’s easy to blame everything on COVID, Brexit or the overall state of the economy
What fat cats Andy? You mean the pensioners we all live next to who have managed to put a little money into a private pension scheme. Those fat cats?
I bet those privatised water companies would have had next to zero invested in the infrastucture unless it had had some private investment. Let’s be real.
That’s the consequences of the jokingly large sums the Troy’s have borrowed since 2010 despite going on about austerity.
National debt was 35% of debt to GDP in 2009 now’s its 100%
For all the talk of austerity the governments raised pension at their fastest rate in history for 12 years now.
I could see their being an argument for the triple lock in the late 2000’s as the basic state pension was too low but now it’s little more than buying votes from entitled baby boomers all of whom were told from the 80’s onwards to save for retirement.
Not disagreeing but if you examine the oppositions manifestos over those periods you’ll see no intention to cut spending or drive the economy forward. Labour’s 2019 manifesto was full of borrowing and then in covid we saw Labour support massive cash injections into the economy abd even arguing it wasn’t enough. So really even if we’d had Labour governments we’d be no better off. Hence why I keep saying these 2 parties are no longer fit to govern. If during the next few years we have another crisis that we need to extend borrowing again we are basically buggered, we’re… Read more »
how do you know are you one of the workforce. my next door neighbour works in Devon port yard. he drives a nice new beemer and has recently had his house extended. on paper the general rates aren’t exactly handsome, but they are not disgusting at all
Significantly more than the guys (and girls) on the boats are awarded (and they have to work weekends too)
Pay disputes, food bank use and NHS waiting lists are just surface symptoms; deeper signs are homelessness and NHS maternity care. The real cultural problems are revealed in the Post Office scandal and the Infected blood scandal…gaslighting on a criminal scale. The NHS ( envy of the world, not), the Dept of Health and wider Civil service and government need to look themselves in the mirror and see the seediness. The governance of this country has been in the hands of arrogant men and women.
Well, I spend a big chunk of my working time in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. The NHS and the UK in general has a very good reputation. As these countries are facing very similar problems. We take so much for granted.
I’m sure feeling is mutual.
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I agree, the main issue in the UK is an expectation of Scandinavian service levels on US taxation rates. The NHS is rated as the world’s second most efficient health care service and it’s the main reason the UK has better HDI figures than the USA, France, Japan and Canada, and singapore. It’s only issue is a lack of money and the expectation that people expect from a free to use government provided service. Given how low the UK tax take is compared to other OECD governments it’s astounding the level of service provided in the UK. The main issue… Read more »
I think we are missing the point here. Language like ‘culture of defensiveness’ doesn’t cut it. What has happened is that individuals have committed gross negligence manslaughter. We need to call a spade a spade. Evil has been done. There should be prosecutions and people should go to jail.
what kind of shit is all this?
Ok, I’m using up my rant ration on an important subject. Just suck it up…..please.
all the acronyms on here is ridiculous lately it comes to the point where I can’t understand a bloody word anyone is talking about.
Well, you are probably ahead of me mate on that one. I remember the request for response document they produced for T31 had a nice glossary of acronyms. Was very helpdul. Maybe George can do one for UKDEF readers.
I think COVID caused a big chunk of that debt. Saying that. Things would be far worse without the furlough scheme. Unemployment would be through the roof. But we do take so much for granted. I work in Germany regularly, the country most Brits think everything works wonderfully efficient. It doesn’t. The roads are crap, the train service is more unreliable than ours, and they have the same staff shortages across government services and health care like we do.
I agree, I’m regularly in Germany and like most Brit’s I was taken aback about poor train service in Germany compared to the UK.
That being said I don’t think I seen any roads worse than ours. Our Motorways and Trunk roads are decent but city streets are terrible.
Yeah, definitely worse in cities. The motorway network is overall pretty good.
and nts not the kind of oversized carpark like the M6.
these posts have nothing to do with defence. stop the political rubbish and get back to what brings us on here.
You won’t find many political posts from me Andy. I talk from what is realistic with the available defence budget. And I will defend our nation from those who think everyone else does it better and Britain is crap brigade.
your well informed post’s are always a worthwhile read matey
Appreciate that Andy.
I’m sick and tired of hearing about workforce issues in the Scottish shipping industry surely a government with balls would come Down hard on them orders can be amended, and they should be reminded of it
Do we really need another Anti Scottish rant from you Andy? You made your point many times before, I don’t think any of us are benefiting from another England-Scotland tirade.
another anti Scottish rant. whee another nation is churning out three ships to one of ours, questions and answers should be being asked but it appears that they are not. if the vast amount of money given to the Clyde had been given to say the north east yards then the taxpayer might be getting better value for money.