GMB Welcome £250 Million Order To Secure Cammell Laird Shipyard’s Future

Keith Hazlewood, GMB National Secretary, of the largest shipbuilding union responding to the news that Cammell Laird has secured contracts worth £250 million said, “The awarding of the “preferred contractors” for four “through life” ship repair contracts by the Ministry of Defence has brought a much needed boost to Cammell Laird, Merseyside yard.

In 2001/02 the yard was forced to close after building a mid section extension for an Italian cruise liner, the Costa Clasica, which never arrived for the conversion to take place, leaving the mid section floating in the dock. This order inflicted financial problems for Cammell Laird which went a long way in resulting in them going out of business.

We look forward to working with North Western Ship repair and Shipbuilders Limited in the future to help them secure these contracts and further contracts taking skilled and well paid jobs to the Wirral, the Community and contributing to the UK economy.”

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said, “Cammell Laird yard has had its share of controversy. In 1984 workers were jailed for occupying the yard to stop it closing. It was a travesty of justice by the then Conservative government to jail GMB members who were fighting to keep their jobs. It is a further travesty of justice is that most of the men that were jailed have not worked in the Industry since. This is despite an ongoing GMB campaign to right the injustice of the jailing of Eddy Marnell and his work colleagues".

Tony Blair promised the GMB Congress 2006 that he would seek to open the files to discover if this jailing was politically motivated and if there were grounds to pardon these workers. GMB’s campaign continues and we will never forget this unjustified Tory attack on ordinary working people.”

Source:RamblerNews