Union fury over turbine job cuts
A trade union has blasted Kintyre’s wind turbine factory owners after it was reported to have announced severe job cuts.
Unite the Union said on Wednesday October 30 that CS Wind, which employs 94 people, had announced up to 73 job losses – three quarters of the workforce – at its Machrihanish factory, the only UK centre manufacturing onshore and offshore wind towers.
The union said CS Wind is blaming the decision on gaps in orders. Company accounts lodged in April, however, showed the directors see the outlook for the next financial year as ‘positive’ and posted pre-tax profits in 2018 of £7.1 million, up from a loss of £191,000 in 2017.
The factory, operational since January 2002, was bought by the South Korean company CS Wind in April 2016. It made a £27 million investment in the facility.
As part of complex partnership arrangements, Danish firm Ørsted also made a multimillion-pound investment in the factory in December 2016. It has preferred access rights to towers for its offshore wind farms. In addition, CS Wind signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Swedish company Vattenfall which gave the company the opportunity to tender for tower supply contracts on future Vattenfall onshore wind farm projects.
The union has been critical of the Scottish and UK governments over the amount of manufacturing work directly created by the billions of pounds being invested into the renewables sector in Scotland. In response to the latest blow, Unite is calling for the Scottish Government to immediately reconvene its Offshore Wind Summit and to provide support to the workforce.
Charlie Macdonald of Unite said: ‘News of the redundancy notices affecting three quarters of the workforce at CS Wind in Campbeltown is a major blow to Scotland’s renewables manufacturing capacity. CS Wind is another example of the spaghetti-bowl of multi-national interests calling the shots in our nation’s renewables sector with scant regard for workers and communities. There needs to be urgent intervention by the Scottish Government because if the scale of these job losses goes unchallenged, not only is there is a major cloud over the future of the factory in Campbeltown but also over Scotland’s green manufacturing capacity.’