Fighting to defend Scottish shipyard jobs

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More shinvard iobs under the hammer BOB BARTY, Robb Caledon yard convenor, JACK McHARDY, chairperson of s the local Confed, and CHARLES ROYLE, Boilermakers' steward, told Matthew Jones and John MacDonald why Robb Caledon workers are occupying their yard.

BB: 149 manual workers and ten foremen have joined the sit-in. The Executive of the Combine Committee asked for a commitment from the whole workforce not to accept voluntary redundancies.

Previously British Shipbuilders had run our yard down from a few thousand to the present numbers by voluntary redundancy and natural wastage. We've seen yards closed through voluntary redundancies alone, so we held a meeting and everyone agreed not to accept voluntary redundancy. We attended a Confed meeting in Blackpool on the 9th, and it decided to fully support us.

The whole industry realises that unless something is done now the cancer of closures will spread. If we left this yard unattended it would be tantamount to compulsory redundancies.

• CR: a national overtime ban is being organised from 4.30 on the 18th, and a one-day national strike every. Monday beginning on the 28th. DO BB: In the past they withdrew a threat of closure after an overtime ban. The overtime ban has a more far-reaching effect than most people realise. Robb Caledon sent a telegram congratulating the Shipbuilding Negotiating Committee [of the Confed] on their decision on an overtime ban.

British Shipbuilders put an advert in the papers today, and this is an admissthat they're really frightened.

They're saying that there is no work. Since the Polish order, they've not got us one single worthwhile job, though they sent a taskforce round the world looking for orders. • DO JM: They're also saying that we've been offered permanent transfers to Leith. That's 60 miles away from our homes and families.

There's no travelling expenses in permanent transfers, and there's no housing there either. DO BB: And we can't get access to the press to say what is really happening. When they announced closnology"

KEN GRIFFIN, leputy chairman, British Shipbuilders, 27.10.79.

ure, they said that Dundee had lost £11 million.

We got the figures ourselves, with help from colleagues in the management union, and what did we find? - the losses that they said were for Dundee were for the Robb Caledon group as a whole. The losses for Dundee were a fraction of the total.

The chairman has admitted this to us, but they're still claining publicly that we've made a loss of £11 million since nationalisation.

'Mistake' They said we were bottom of the league for productivity. But now we've investigated, they say they made a mistake, and we're middle of the league.

They're saying we're not competitive, but we've not had the chance.

We were also told we'd be notified of any inquiries for jobs, and we were told that there had been none.

When we got hold of the list of job inquiries, dated September 3, 1980, we discovered that there had been inquiries for 119 vessels from January to August. Every one of them was refused.

The fire-fighting boat was 'too small'; a floating crane, a large cutter, and a wet fish trawler, were too large' tricksters"

BOB BARTY, convenor Robb caledon.

The chemical waste disposal ship was refused because design staff were on other projects, although we'd been told that jobs for our yard were the absolute priority.

There's no way they wanted to find us jobs. Men left this yard because we were being conned, and we couldn't persuade them to stay on.

British Shipbuilders are not people of integrity, they are confidence tricksters.

I have a tape at home with a statement from Ken Griffin [deputy chairman of British Shipbuilders] that •This yard has a great reputation for specialist ships. They have a skilled workforce, and given the opportunity can even enter a higher field of technology Messages of support to:

Robb Caledon shipyard, Dundee. [Phone Dundee 459066].