Union leaders told Labour and the SNP to quit squabbling and work together to help save Clyde shipyard jobs amid accusations the Conservatives are pushing for posts to move to England.
Gary Smith, the GMB Scotland secretary, said: “We do not need point scoring between Labour and the SNP. The Clyde is not a political football.”
He added: “BAE is under pressure to move jobs to support Tory votes in the south west of England and help George Osborne’s 'Northern Powerhouse’".
Unions warn that up to 800 Clyde workers could be made redundant as a result of delays to a contract to build eight Type 26 warships for the Royal Navy.
The GMB union had threatened to allow the UK Government's flagship £6bn aircraft carriers, also being built on the Clyde, to rust if just one worker is put out of work.
The union has also accused the Scottish Secretary David Mundell of lying to workers about the future of shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde.
Earlier this week Mr Mundell said that shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde would be guaranteed “for years to come”.
In a letter to Mr Mundell, Mr Smith accused him of being disingenuous and “at worst” lying to workers.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has called for a “cast-iron commitment” from David Cameron to deliver the contracts.
UK government sources rejected claims of pressure for jobs in Scotland as “utter nonsense”.
Earlier this week defence minister Philip Dunne said that ministers remained committed to building eight frigates on the Clyde.
But he refused to rule out redundancies as the result of delays.
The contracts were first promised in the lead up to the Scottish independence referendum, leading to claims of "betrayal" from SNP MPs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel