Shipyard lay-off despite new orders

Workers accepted new pay and conditions in May

A Belfast shipyard which recently won a major contract has given official redundancy notices to 280 workers.

Harland and Wolff said the redundancies were mainly voluntary and had resulted from a lack of orders.

The yard has been facing financial difficulty and an empty order book for some time, but won a £300m order for four roll-on-roll-off passenger vessels in May.

Although H&W has also secured a letter of intent for building two luxury liners, the yard has said it had no work to offer the men being laid off until the new contracts start.

The company added that it was still tendering for work.

The workers were going at the end of Thursday's shift with their redundancy payments and cash in lieu of notice. 'Skills will be lost'

However, workers' unions were worried about protecting the remaining jobs at the east Belfast shipyard.

MSF Union spokesman Joe Bowers said: "Things are looking better and there is the prospect that we will be requiring many more shipyard workers from the summer of next year.

"At least we will be cutting steel on these next ones from the beginning of next year.

"But there is a six months gap, and there is something radically wrong with our society that we can't bridge six months.

"Instead we have to destroy the skills of hundreds of workers, that we have developed over decades."

Pay and conditions

In March, the entire H&W workforce was put on protective notice of redundancy because of a lack of orders.

And despite a restructuring to try to ease its cashflow problems, the yard's long-term future is still insecure.

The immediate threat of closure was lifted with the signing of the contract with Bahamas-based firm Seamasters International for four sophisticated passenger vessels.