Fears for future of full-time jobs at BiFab

Labour has called for action after workers at BiFab raised concerns over the nature of future employment at the marine engineering firm’s yards in Fife and the Western Isles.

A statement from the core workforce said they believe the firm’s new owners want to drop fulltime staff in favour of agency workers.

Scottish Labour demanded swift action from Finance Secretary Derek Mackay to ensure that skills are not lost “for good”.

The Scottish Government said it is confident everything is being done to secure new contracts and restore employment to past levels.

The comments come a week after a union claimed that further redundancies at BiFab have led to the effective closure of the yards.

GMB Scotland said from a core workforce of 400 and 1,000 contractors, only seven staff have been offered part-time positions for maintenance and security of the sites at Arnish on Lewis and Burntisland and Methil in Fife.

In addition, 12 senior managers will be retained by new owner Canadian company JV Driver, which acquired the firm through its subsidiary DF Barnes in April in a Scottish Government-backed rescue package.

In a statement, the BiFab core workforce said unions believe “it has been the intention of Barnes / Driver all along to sack the full-time union core workforce and then start back non-union agency personnel”.

A DF Barnes spokesman said: “We believe the high quality skills of Scotland’s workforce have a critical part to play in our development, but we need to maintain a laser-sharp focus on attracting new orders in order to secure everyone’s future.”

“Laser-sharp focus on attracting new orders”