SPOILER ALERT for those attending tonight’s Wirral South Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meeting
We have received a copy of an Emergency Motion about Cammell Laird shipyard which we fully endorse and would like to share especially as we are currently joining the dots on a current investigation involving the shipyard.
You’d think that the “Turning the tide on Casualisation” campaign would be right up neighbouring MP Frank Field’s street wouldn’t you? And indeed as part of Field’s relentless media presence he has obviously made sure that Cammell Laird gets a mention. A recent press release can be found on his blog here
Birkenhead’s MP Frank Field is battling to safeguard jobs at Cammell Laird by supporting the yard’s bids for two major shipbuilding orders – one from the Ministry of Defence and the other from Merseytravel…
Frank comments: ‘In the shipbuilding industry, the sure-fire way of being able to safeguard jobs is to keep bidding for and winning major orders. Cammell Laird is a world leader in shipbuilding and I am determined to ensure it has a fighting chance of securing these two orders. The yard’s longstanding technical credibility and expertise, as well as its unique capabilities of driving innovation and upskilling the workforce, go hand in hand with its vital role in supporting small and medium sized businesses across our region.’
However whilst securing shipbuilding orders are indeed one way of securing jobs at Cammell Laird you will note that the main thrust of the Unions campaign is the possible use of non-Unionised(?), cheaper labour accessed via an agency thereby undermining local workers rights ,pay and conditions and the potential cause of future redundancies. Once again you would think this would be meat and potatoes for Field. We’d certainly expect him to be raising questions about who’s behind this mysterious agency – we certainly have and the information we’ve has opened up some interesting lines of enquiry.
Perhaps it could be both impolitic and impolite for Field to mention such matters when Cammell Laird is a major contributor (along with Wirral Council taxpayers) to Frank Field’s pet project ‘Feeding Birkenhead’ ?
Meanwhile we encourage our readers to support this campaign and sign the petition:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-jobs-at-cammell-lairds
Wirralleaks 
Have signed. What a shame that “upskilling” always seems to coincide with “downwaging” eh Frank? Still, you’ve made a few quid (£77,000 p.a.) over the years, getting inflation busting 12% pay hikes in return for spouting empty words to remind us you’re always here…
…then going missing when former Lairds workers and their families slide into poverty.
The objective in building British navy ships in British yards is that they employ British skilled and other British workers to build them. Too much ‘agency’ employment is simply a means to employ low cost EU27 workers.
Meanwhile the Liverpool Echo is covering only ONE half of the story…
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