WORKERS at Rosyth yesterday appealed to the STUC for help following fears that 1300 jobs are at risk because senior Naval officers want to kill off a multi-million pound submarine refit programme.
The deal to refit two S-class nuclear-powered submarines was a lifeline which helped saved the Rosyth Royal Dockyard.
Now rumours have surfaced that senior Naval personnel are planning to use the Strategic Defence Review as a smokescreen to scrap the important deal.
It is believed that a certain section of the Navy is concerned that the building of the new class Astute submarines may be slowed down under the review, and are suggesting instead that the expensive refits are sacrificed in order to protect the Astute programme.
Unions at Rosyth say such a scrapping would be a disaster for the yard.
Union officials yesterday heard Mr David Falconer, president of the general workers union, the GMB, say that Rosyth dockyard had a strategic requirement which can withstand the rigours of the defence review.
''However senior naval officers, who have proved themselves in the past to be no friends of Rosyth, are clearly still carrying on a rearguard action to close Rosyth,'' he continued.
He said these were the same people who argued for the closure of Rosyth in the early 90s with the work going to Portsmouth and Devonport. It was only when Devonport was unable to carry out the necessary work to prepare itself for the submarine refit that the refit contract returned to Rosyth.
Mr Falconer argued that withdrawing from the refit programme would not make strategic sense as it would leave the submarine fleet below operational strength as the new generation of submarines would not come into commission until 2006.
He also questioned why submarines were being built when there was still no solution to the safe dispersal of the nuclear-powered decommissioned submarines.
When the yard was sold to Babcock International, it was pro-mised a 10-year stream of work. If this was not confirmed, then it would damage the company's plans to diversify into new civil work.
Mr Falconer added: ''Developing new markets takes time, diversification takes time, and in order to diversify you must have something to diversify from. These proposals from senior naval officers will undermine the entire diversification strategy.''
Mr Alan Denney, national president of the managers' union, the IPMS, said the commitment of the Rosyth workforce was shown just over a year ago when it took a cut in terms and conditions to help secure the yard's future.
''IPMS members at Rosyth were therefore furious when they discovered that senior naval officers were considering sacrificing hundreds of jobs at the yard by diverting financial resources away from the refit programme - not because the submarines do not need to be worked on, simply because the Navy are more interested in a new generation of submarines than in the workforce in Fife,'' he said.
He argued that, if it went ahead, it would destroy the local economy and cause problems across Scotland.
He said that if the Government had no problem in sticking to the previous Government's spending plans, then it should continue to support the previous Government's promise.
Congress delegates voted unanimously for the STUC to campaign for the retention of the refit programme.
Shop steward Colm McConell said morale at the yard was low.
''We were promised the workload, but if it is removed then we are going to have severe difficulties as there is nothing to replace it with at present.''
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