WILLIAMSTOWN’S naval shipyard was once in a position to knock back non-military work. Staring into the ‘Valley of Death’, it can no longer afford to.
BAE employee and Australian Manufacturers Workers Union shop steward Leon White explains that the ‘Valley’ expression refers to one shipbuilding project finishing before another one starts, with a resulting loss of jobs and skills.
“Every time they have redundancies they get rid of a heap of people,” Mr White said. “Then they rise back up and get another project on, but they can’t get the blokes back; they’ve moved on.
“So you get a lot of new starters who have never worked on ships, and training issues.”
A union meeting was held at BAE Systems last Thursday amid fears for shipbuilding jobs and skills if defence contracts don’t flow.
The union has launched a campaign to pressure federal MPs for more government naval and ship contracts. It will start with federal Gellibrand MP Nicola Roxon, who earlier this month visited the site to inspect the first of BAE’s two Landing Helicopter Docks.
Mr White said BAE, which employees more than 1000 people, had started accepting non-naval work.
“We’ve done a few commercial ships. Years ago, someone wanted something done and they knocked it back saying, ‘We only do navy stuff’.”
AMWU national secretary Paul Bastian said more government work was needed to avoid lay-offs and the so-called Valley of Death. “The way to avoid it is to bring forward the contracts on those vessels that have been identified as required or increase fleet sizes and grow the whole pie of work.
“Our home is girt by sea so it would be smart to be able to build our own ships.”
Mr Bastian said there were 48 vessels required for navy and coastal operations and BAE workers wanted to build a fourth Australian warfare destroyer (AWD).
BAE maritime director Bill Saltzer said there was a significant gap in work approaching.
“This Valley of Death has already been acknowledged in statements made by several members of the federal government,” he said. “Our currently contracted work on blocks for the AWD program will be completed by mid-2013 and our work on the LHD program will finish in 2015.
“So, for Williamstown, the gap is an immediate concern.”
