VICKERS Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited (VSEL) in Barrow-InFurness has historically dominated the local economy with a peak core workforce in 1989 of 14.000 workers In March 1991 VSEL Chief Executive, Noel Davies announced the massacre of over 5,000 workers jobs as part of an ongoing redundancy programme. This came shortly after the announcement of pre-tax profits of £33.4 million!
In the VSEL strategic plan of 1991 (the company response to forecast reductions in government defence spending) Davies claimed the lowest level the workforce would fall to would be around 7.000.
Subsequently he has sugHOME NEWS gested it could fall as low as 4,000. Shipyard workers are extremely bitter at the betrayals of VSEL bosses and the Tory government who promised secure employment well into the next century.
Privatised
Since the Tories privatised Vickers in 1986 the company has waged war against the trade unions in the yard. In 1988 there was an 11 week strike, ostensibly about fixed versus floating holidays, but in reality about the bosses' attempts to smash the Yard workers have described the atmosphere inside the cradle of the British nuclear arms industry as akin to an army camp' where workers must stand to attention and account for their every move when the bosses are around'.
1992 saw the completion and naming ceremony, performed by Royal scrounger Princess Diana, of Britain's first Trident missile armed nuclear submarine, HMS 'Vanguard".
In the same year VSEL Chair - ex-Labour Foreign Affairs Minister - Lord Chalfont awarded himself a nice fat pay rise, £117,000 to £127,000, whilst thousands of workers were being sent down the road.
June 1993 saw the announcement of annual profits of £34.6 million, a rise in excess of 16 per cent. This came shortly before the July 30 news that VSEL's sister yard, Cammel Laird was to close, slamming the door on 165 years of shipbuilding expertise. September 1993 saw the roll-out of the second Trident submarine 'Victorious' Increased profits VSEL's recent half-yearly review revealed an increase in profits after tax of £18.4 milÎion, a company turnover of £233.2 million and a cash balance of £270 million (£38 million in 1989!). The current book order stands at £2.8 million.
Chief executive Davies envisages some 2,500 employed in the future on submarines, 1,500 on surface ships, several hundred involved in land systems and a few hundred more on various commercial products.
The traditionally arrogant and incompetent VSEL attitude to diversification was summed up by Davies, the cash is more useful in our balance sheet than frittered away on things that are not certain to succeed'.
He omitted to mention the destruction of working-class lives he and his super rich pals have presided over or the fact that Trident will have enough firepower to cause up to 4,000 Hiroshimas at a cost of millions per day for the next 20 years.
Share price high 1994 has already witnessed the record high VSEL share price of 953p on January 11 and a couple of days later the local press was full of reports that VSEL is poised to launch a €10 million 'venture fund' to "boost the economy'.
Crumbs from the table of those who have spent generations extracting massive profits from the town's workers. Current employment levels at the yard are just over 6,500 with more sackings to come.
Shipyard trade unions leaders have singularly failed to build for any kind of workers' fightback, as has the politically inept local Labour Party.
The situation in the shipyard cries out for a fightback. Redundancies proposed must be fought by strike action demanding a shorter working week and division of all work amongst yard workers without loss of pay.
Labour and union activists must raise the call for renationalisation of VSEL under workers control and for the conversion of the company to socially useful production.
Any effective local fightback must link up with all those defence workers nationally and internationally facing similar job cuts! .a0.