{"id":23538,"date":"2020-09-09T14:26:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T13:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=23538"},"modified":"2020-09-09T14:29:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T13:29:06","slug":"fss-sos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=23538","title":{"rendered":"FSS SOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p>A \u00c2\u01411.5 billion contract to build Royal Navy fleet solid support ships (FSS) that has been opened to overseas shipyards must go to domestic firms if UK shipbuilding jobs are to be preserved, Unite has warned MPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At a parliamentary Defence Select Committee meeting yesterday (8 September), Unite told MPs that the FSS contract was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098litmus test\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on the sincerity of the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservatives.com\/news\/were-bringing-shipbuilding-back-to-the-uk\">loudly trumpeted<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0support for the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shipbuilding industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Yesterday Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Rhys McCarthy gave evidence to the Defence Select Committee on why the \u00c2\u01411.5bn Royal Navy fleet support ship contract, which could support up to 16,000 UK jobs, should not be sent abroad:<br><br>\u00e2\u20ac\u0098It would damage our industrial base &amp; the skills that go with it&#39; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wNqSB21CUV\">pic.twitter.com\/wNqSB21CUV<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Unite the union: join a union (@unitetheunion) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unitetheunion\/status\/1303680489551802369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 9, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Unite national officer Rhys McCarthy told MPs that it would be wrong for state-supported firms in other countries to be handed the Ministry of Defence contract, which could support up to 16,000 jobs, when the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own shipbuilding industry is crying out for work.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have a situation where one of the preferred international bidders is a Spanish state-owned company, receiving Spanish state aid, and it is an unfair disadvantage and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen it with other shipbuilding that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone on, with South Korea for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members are not afraid of internal UK competition, particularly if it drives excellence. What we have concerns with, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been shown with the FSS debacle, is international competition that damages our industrial base and the skills that go with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to lose sovereign capability and we think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach and as others have touched on it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appear to be a defence policy or a strategy.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More widely, Unite is calling for more of the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual \u00c2\u0141292 billion public procurement to be\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/unitetheunion.org\/media\/3196\/9121_manufacturing-matters-strategy_final.pdf\">allocated to UK manufacturers<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From fleet support ships to car fleets, the decision to award contracts to the lowest international bidders is part of the same economic thinking which has fragmented manufacturing across ever more complex supply chains, seen the outsourcing of design and staff jobs, and drives the constant competition between workers in the same multinationals in a race to the bottom for investment.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the immediate term Unite has also launched the\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/unitetheunion.org\/campaigns\/sos-for-jobs\/\">SOS for Jobs<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0campaign demanding a focused\u00c2\u00a0sector level extension, including within manufacturing industries, of the job retention scheme (JRS), which is set to end on 1 November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Workers and Unite fear that without\u00c2\u00a0a change of heart from ministers a\u00c2\u00a0tide of job losses will engulf UK manufacturing as employers lose confidence in the future, with demand yet to return to pre-Covid levels.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The workers&nbsp;are further concerned that with competitor nations offering long-term support for their&nbsp;manufacturing base, UK jobs will disappear while our competitors in France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and even the US are protected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A \u00c2\u01411.5 billion contract to build Royal Navy fleet solid support ships (FSS) that has been opened to overseas shipyards must go to domestic firms if UK shipbuilding jobs are to be preserved, Unite has warned MPs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1413,55,514],"wps_subtitle":"Unite tells MPs \u00c2\u01411.5bn Royal Navy supply ship contract must go to UK firms to safeguard jobs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23545,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23538\/revisions\/23545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}