320 Ship Builders
All workers engaged in building and repairing ships, boats and small harbour craft. All drydock workers.
Shipbuilding (as well as repairing and breaking) is on the decline in the UK. Once a key industry in many of our major ports, companies have outsourced to other countries where the laws make it easier for businesses to exploit their workers. There now remain only around 16,000 working in building and repair of ships and boats. With an annual turnover of £2billion, bosses in the UK are still reaping a hefty profit from their workers' labour, blackmailing them into poor working conditions with threats of moving abroad. This has all taken place with many 'rationalisations' (i.e. cutbacks) and mergers among UK shipbuilding businesses in recent years. What's more, with recent Royal Navy plans to expand their fleet, solid class-conscious shipbuilders are facing dilemmas about their position in an ever-expanding profit-hungry war in the Middle East.
While the existing workforce is ageing and too few new recruits are coming into the industry, bosses often continue to pay apprentices no more than the basic apprenticeship rate, well below the minimum wage. This bizzare logic is endangering the future of shipbuilding in the UK for the sake of a quick buck for the fatcats.
The shipbuilding industry needs a union like the IWW to fight hard and fight clever to beat these profiteering bosses. The IWW's principles of creative direct action, workplace militance and rank-and-file solidarity makes it the ideal union to fight and win in the shipbuilding industry. Contact us and sign up today and get organising at your work. It costs as little as a quid to join - you have nothing to lose, and a lot to gain!
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