{"id":7735,"date":"2016-02-12T13:02:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7735"},"modified":"2016-02-12T13:02:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:02:45","slug":"support-defence-jobs-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7735","title":{"rendered":"Support defence jobs plea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Growing frustrations with the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s short term political decision-making have led Unite defence sector members to join with leading industry figures to discuss the growing frustrations at a special conference in Preston on March 21.<\/p>\n

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With 50,000 defence jobs lost in the last decade, and major government spending decisions looming, Unite says that the entire industry is at a crossroads \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the wrong decisions could see the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s skills and capacity to support its own independent national defence programme destroyed.<\/p>\n

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The union will also be launching its campaign to press the government to keep UK defence spending in Britain as figures reveal that defence firms outside the UK are set to receive more and more of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defence budget, undermining British jobs and skills.<\/p>\n

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Analysts predict that as much as 25 pence in the pound of UK defence spend could be being spent in US factories by 2020 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c over double the current amount of 12 pence in the pound.<\/p>\n

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Protecting jobs <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Protecting jobs on the Successor submarine programme and Trident will also be on the special conference\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s agenda with discussions from the day feeding into Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s submission to Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defence review.<\/p>\n

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Unite general secretary Len McCluskey will be among the leading figures addressing the conference.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis sector is at a crossroads.\u00c2\u00a0Our members right across the industry \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from nuclear, aviation and naval \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are demanding to know that the decisions being taken by government are joined up, and that first and foremost they benefit UK jobs and communities,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said McCluskey.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe are deeply concerned that this is not the case.\u00c2\u00a0There have been far too many short term decisions made for political purposes by this and other governments.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWith 50,000 defence jobs lost in the past 10 years, and major decisions on purchasing and development looming, it is high time that the government stopped using this workforce as a political football.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTop of our agenda is to ask why UK taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money will be used to support US defence jobs at the expense of jobs and communities here.\u00c2\u00a0 It is nothing short of a scandal that 12 per cent of our defence budget spending goes to the US now and that this will double in the next four years.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSpending our defence budget in the UK makes sound economic and defence sense, so we will be pressing the government to set out how it can do this and support Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sovereign defence capability over the long-term.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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McCluskey added that this was also an opportunity for Unite members to feed into Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defence review. He said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will be sending the same message to the Labour Party: support British defence jobs and communities and protect jobs on the Successor submarine programme and Trident.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defence members can be in no doubt whatsoever. We want answers on the investment in their future and will do everything in our power to protect and preserve their livelihoods.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing frustrations with the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s short term political decision-making have led Unite defence sector members to join with leading industry figures to discuss the growing frustrations at a special conference in Preston on March 21.   With 50,000 defence jobs lost in the last decade, and major government spending decisions looming, Unite says that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[484,44],"wps_subtitle":"UK defence industry at crossroads","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7735"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7742,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7735\/revisions\/7742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}