Brilliant news on Cammel Laird getting the ten year £619m contract to support the RFA Tankers. The knock-on from this is sustaining 300 jobs and creating more than 100 apprenticeships. This is a combination of two contracts, one to support the old RFA Tankers and the other to support the new ones.

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Yes agree with you DD, brilliant !

Agreed. Very good news indeed.

you would of thought this was great news but it isn't, they are getting rid of over 260 staff and so they are now balloting for strike action

Its a difficult situation, there is a lull between contracts and the profit margins these days aren't great so carrying a workforce without work isn't realistic.

A bit more support from our own Government would help all our shipyards but they keep on hiving contracts out abroad.

I feel very sorry for those laid off but they know their jobs are contract driven and layoffs are sometimes part of the territory. Going on strike probably isn't the answer in this case, they are reducing the chances of getting future contracts, especially for the construction of Leander class frigate which will be a massive project if they and BAE win with potential sales to other countries.

The management are probably going to have to cave in at least temporarily to get existing contracts finished on time but the money has to be recovered from somewhere.

You need to see the breakdown of the trades that are going to be made redundant, as a lot of the work involved on supporting the likes of the RFA tankers will not need many of the steel work trades.