Shipyard workers and their unions have achieved a major victory in their fight to prevent hundreds of redundancies at the Cammell Laird shipyard on Merseyside.
In a meeting this afternoon the company pulled back from the brink, agreeing to shelve the redundancies for four weeks in exchange for an end to the industrial action, to give time for a stakeholder taskforce including unions, politicians, government ministers, the company and its main shareholder Peel Ports to find a permanent resolution.
The SKWAWKBOX congratulates Unite, GMB and most of all their members at the shipyard on winning a huge step forward toward a sensible resolution to the situation, against considerable opposition.
More is to be done, but the solidarity shown by workers, their families and local people made this possible.
The first taskforce meeting will take place next week.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
We say fight back!
Peel Ports seems to be one of those companies that views labour purely as numbers on the wrong side of a balance sheet – a regrettable cost of doing business to be minimised by all possible means.
Last year they were criticised for failing to provide even basic toilet facilities for lorry drivers at their Liverpool container dock who have to wait there for hours at a time.
Yes Neo-Liberalism loves individual success but hates collective success and for the moment the workers with all the wider community support have won a reprieve from Neo-Liberalism’s drive for CHEAP LABOUR.
Neo-Liberslism is about privatisation, outsourcing, sub contracting, job insecurity etc – essentially CHEAP LABOUR to enhance profit so it is as simple as that. The reality is it is the labour of the workers who really create the wealth of this company and the owners legally nick it! Solidarity Forever!