By KEN SMITH
A MAJOR trade union is calling on the Government to ban Korean
companies from bidding for lucrative North Sea oil work, claiming that
unfair competition from the Asian country is putting thousands of
British jobs at risk.
The AEEU, the engineering and electrical union, says 15,000 oil
construction jobs have gone in the past year and more could follow
without Government intervention.
The latest yard to be put at risk is UiE in Clydebank, where 200
workers will be sacked next week because of a downturn in work. Shop
stewards estimate that without new orders, more than 1000 further jobs
could go by the end of the year, leaving the yard on a care and
maintenance basis.
The loss of fabrication work in Scotland in recent years has been
enormous. McDermott's yard in Ardersier is also on care and maintenance,
yet only last year it employed 3500 people. Brown and Root's yard at
Nigg is down to about 550 workers from 2500 last year and a peak of 5000
in the eighties.
The other major oil rig yard is RGC at Methil in Fife, where the
workforce is now more than halved at 700.
It is not disputed that the peak of construction work for the North
Sea has now passed but the AEEU is concerned that South Korean yards are
now targeting orders in the North Sea. The union claims that as the
South Korean Government subsidises yards by more than #200m every year,
it makes it impossible for British yards to compete fairly.
There are two major orders, together worth more than #130m, which are
likely to be announced later this year for the Philips company's Judy
field and BP's Andrew field, and the union wants the Government to act
now to halt Korean intervention.
Already, Korean yards have won the jacket and deck work for the BP
Forth field. Ironically, the Forth order, at more than #70m, was
announced only weeks after the Budget in which Petroleum Revenue Tax
changes were estimated to save BP #100m.
AEEU executive member Jimmy Airlie said yesterday: ''With the present
perilous state of the oil construction industry in this country, there
is no way that the UK Government should be allowing heavily subsidised
Korean yards on the bid lists.
''Strong and immediate actions should be taken to ensure that the UK
yards are not disadvantaged against this unfair Korean competition. It
is a scandal and a disgrace that this is happening when something like
90% of the jobs in Britian have gone in the past two years.''
At the start of last year, there were 20,000 construction workers
employed onshore in Britain, fabricating structures for the North Sea.
There are now about 5000.
The union has been tracking the 1600 members who lost their jobs at
Ardersier last year. A survey shows nearly two-thirds are still
unemployed, while others are in short-term seasonal work.
Only 19 of the 820 workers who responded said they found work as a
result of Government agency assistance.
The union also blames the Government for the lack of planning in the
development of the North Sea. There is now a dearth of orders while in
the 1989 to 1992 period there were so many structures required that the
UK yards could not cope and work went abroad as a result.
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