The Samson and Goliath cranes in Belfast shipyard continue to dominate the city’s skyline but workers in the shipbuilding sector once again face an insecure future. For more than 160 the Harland & Wolff has been synonymous with the ship building industry in Belfast. The business most famously built the most famous ship in history, the Titanic, and had a long connection with the White Star line which operated it. Production and employment at the shipyard peaked during world war two when at a time of unprecedented demand, Belfast could offer tens of thousands of workers with the needed skills and a natural deep water harbour.
With the retreat of the British empire the Royal Navy, once the most powerful in the world, rapidly contracted. The development of jet powered air transport hugely impacted the maritime ship building sector as did competition from Japanese shipyards. The precipitous decline of shipbuilding was further accelerated by the anti-industrial policy of the 1980s Tory government which stripped away much of the British industrial base. In the wave of privatisations that accompanied the Thatcherite counter-revolution, Harland and Wolff which had been nationalised in 1977 was sold off to the Norwegian shipping magnate Fred Olsen.
Workers’ occupation
Despite this change of ownership, the shipyard continued to struggle. Investment dried up and there was no vision for the shipbuilding sector from government. The last ship built in Belfast was completed in 2003 with the company turning to work on bridges, oil platforms and ship fit-outs instead. The crisis came to head with the management company entering administration in 2019. The response from workers in Unite the union and GMB was heroic and they occupied the site for eleven weeks demanding that the shipyard and jobs be saved, being nationalised if necessary. Their fight was instrumental in stopping the shipyard being sold for scrap metal and the iconic shipyard cranes becoming another emblem of industrial decline.
The workers’ fight ensured the shipyard was bought as a going-concern. The buyer was Infrastrata a company which had formally been to the fore in two highly controversial projects. The first was an attempt to frack for natural gas in Antrim and the second was to build under sea natural gas storage caverns at Islandmagee. Both these projects drew huge opposition from environmentalists with a mini-siege occurring at Woodburn Forest where the company had sought to initiate exploratory drilling. As a result of the strength of opposition both projects were largely stalled as a result in 2019.
The new owners renamed their company Harland and Wolff and then proceeded on an unusually ambitious strategy for expansion. The owners acquired three other shipyards, two in Scotland and one in England, and was central to a consortium which won the Royal Fleet auxiliary Solid Support ship contract worth £1.6 billion. As part of this contract investment worth £170 million would be made into modernising Belfast shipyard to make it fit for purpose. Efforts to rebuild the skills base needed for shipbuilding in Belfast also proceeded and a large-scale apprenticeship program was introduced.
The ambition of the new owners was apparently without limit and they even engaged in a project to launch a new ferry service for the Scilly isles which would be built in their own shipyards. This ambition was fed by the Tory government who promised a loan guarantee worth £200 million to underpin the expansion. This however was not honoured by the incoming Labour government, after concerns were raised over the company’s finances. This in turn rapidly led to a sharp crisis and the owners were forced to return to US creditors to secure an emergency bridging loan of £25 million (at high interest). This loan was provided subject to the CEO leaving office – he has been followed by the Chief Financial officer in recent days.
Huge potential
The skills of shipyard workers in Belfast, as in the other three shipyards, offer huge potential for society. The same skills that are needed to build war ships can build maritime vessels or the renewable energy infrastructure needed for a green transition. The failure of consecutive governments in Westminster and Stormont to adopt anything near an ambitious strategy for the shipbuilding sector reflects the short term priorities of neo-liberal governments.
The obvious answer to the problems in Harland and Wolff, is and has always been, for the business to be nationalised and the business placed under democratic and workers’ control as part of a wider transition to a democratically planned economy. That would not only ensure that all jobs would be sustained and but open the door to public investment to orient production to socially beneficial objectives. Production could be pivoted away from the manufacture of warships towards socially beneficial manufacturing – with the potential to sustain even more jobs.
Ferries operating to many islands in Ireland and Scotland are substandard and in some cases dangerous. A programme of upgrading ferry services alongside manufacture and maintenance activities for off-shore renewable energy facilities would sustain a vigorous ship-building sector.
The trade unions who once again find themselves standing alone in defence of the workers’ jobs. Stormont Ministers have been entirely silent on this saying it is a commercial issue for the markets to decide. The neoliberalist ideology of all the parties in the Executive is crystal clear.
By comparison the trade unions have highlighted the need for state intervention if it is needed. Socialists demand the Labour government in Westminster and the relevant devolved authorities proceed to nationalise the Harland and Wolff shipyards with production being turned over the democratic control of workers. Government needs to provide public investment to upgrade and reorient production at the shipyards to deliver a range of socially-beneficial public works which will sustain jobs. The campaign to save jobs and skills at Harland & Wolff is one that every worker and trade union should get behind.
