Skip to content or view screen version

Support the Occupation of Appledore Shipbuilders

An Anarchist Worker | 30.09.2003 22:40 | Social Struggles

The workforce at Appledore Shipbuilders have occupied their workplace in an attempt to save livelihoods. The ship yard is in Appledore on the River Torridge, North Devon, England. They need your support and solidarity.


Workers and the local community have united to Occupy Appledore Shipbuilders in Devon. They are asking for support and solidarity in their struggle. Here's a timeline of the occupation taken from their website. Details of how to send messages of support and solidarity are given below.


Monday, September 29, 2003
What happens on Tuesday ?
Receivers have now been appointed, they are due to start at 7.30am on Tuesday 30th September.
This coincides with a mass meeting in the yard.
Informed opinion would appear to indicate that a buyer for the yard can be found.
The mood remains resolute and determined. We are not about to allow 400 years of shipbuilding in the locality go down the pan.


Receivers to take over yard
Up to 700 people lined the entrance of Appledore Shipbuilders on Monday, barricading gates and blocking the main entrance with a digger.
Residents from the nearby village of Appledore joined the protest by demonstrating outside the yard.
BBC News Online story

Local community join the sit-in !
Monday has seen members of the local community joining the workforce in blockading the yard.
In other news, a delegation is at Labour Party conference to lobby on behalf of the workforce and we have heard that the company has appointed receivers as of today.


Sunday, September 28, 2003

Sit-in at threatened shipyard

Workers are staging a sit-in at a north Devon shipyard amid fears the site will close with the loss of 550 jobs
The unofficial action at Appledore Shipbuilders, England's oldest commercial ship builder, showed the anger of workers facing redundancy, union leaders said.


Appledore Work In Begins
The workforce at Appledore Shipbuilders have occupied our workplace in an attempt to save livelihoods.
The ship yard is in Appledore on the River Torridge, North Devon.

The workforce has been on short time working for 15 weeks, taking home 75% of normal earnings when we learned that the yard was to be closed on 30th September.

There has been shipbuilding on The River Torridge for over 400 years.
The loss of Appledore would have a devastating effect on an already ailing local economy.
The loss of the specialised skills at Appledore, the last commercial shipbuilders in England, would truly be economic and strategic madness for an island nation.

Appledore is not a "basket case". This is a viable business with a highly motivated, flexible and skilled workforce. The workforce is determined to preserve the future of the yard through what are short term difficulties.
There is significant amounts of work potentially in the offing and this includes a repeat offer to build a ferry for Caledonian Macbrayne.
If this contract was awarded work could start immediately.

It is recognised that strengthening the management process is vital as we move forward.

Our fight is to preserve the Shipbuilding industry and the heritage and skills that go with it.
An island nation needs a plan for shipbuilding.
Moreover we need to halt the decimation of the countries manufacturing base.
This is not the last roar from a dying industry but a resolute a determined step in creating a viable future.


Contact the work-in:
Union Offices, Appledore Ship Builders, Bideford, North Devon, EX39 1LX, 07800 545844

Send Solidarity messages & donations:
Make cheques payable to:
Appledore Shipbuilders Welfare Club

Email us your messages:
 appledorefuture@hotmail.com

Website:
 http://www.work-in.blogspot.com/

An Anarchist Worker
- Homepage: http://www.awn.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 12 comments

Send in the Police to clear out the rubbish

01.10.2003 23:14

Nobody is ENTITLED to continue doing a job forever--particularly if the job itself is unprofitable. Industry has every right to make strategic decisions with regard to what they will and will not invest in. Further, talented tradesmen have nothing to fear--their services will be picked up by other businesses.

This site's propensity for encouraging illegal activity is rather depressing. Whatever happenned to folks using the power of persuasion rather than thuggish behavior?

Flaming Sword

cripes!

02.10.2003 10:37

Y'all won't make any recruits here mate! Specially calling workers 'rubbish'...

And 'Flaming Sword'?? Hmm.. small cock, I'm guessing. Seek medical help.

;-)

The Occupation is not "thuggish"

02.10.2003 11:01

In fact the terms of the occupation have been agreed in a very civilised manner between the union shop stewards and the official receivers at the yard; of which GMB organiser Gary Smith says: "They have told us more than management ever did."

The occupiers are also (responsibly) making sure that maintenance work at the yard continues and that apprentices continue to receive their training.

There has been nothing but "good behaviour" on all sides and the local residents have been nothing but supportive.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, "Flaming Sword". With your insulting term for people who''ve probably worked a darn sight harder all their lives than you ever have and your talk of "promoting illegal activity" you have the air of a fascist in waiting.

There are good laws and bad laws. We wouldn't even have the vote if it wasn't for people prepared to do more than just submit. But you probably think that working class "rubbish" shouldn't have the vote.

Responsible Reporter

For example...

02.10.2003 18:00

Let's see, someone responds that there has been nothing but "good behavior all around" in this "occupation", yet the article itself notes:

"Up to 700 people lined the entrance of Appledore Shipbuilders on Monday, barricading gates and blocking the main entrance with a digger."

If I understand you correctly, you are implying that the barricading and blocking of property and assets that one does not own is "good behavior"???

Perhaps you'd feel differently if me and a few of my friends came to YOUR home and "line(d) the entrance, barricading...and blocking the main entrance"???

Or do you only support such tactics when the property in question belongs to somebody ELSE?

Flaming Sword

Logic Bomb?

03.10.2003 09:14

Is supporting an occupation designed to keep a warship manufacturer afloat (perhaps more than metaphorically) good in that it keep workers employed and communities together (as well as ensuring continued British offerings in the patrol craft market and keeping costs down by preventing a BAE Systems monopoly) or bad, because it's an inherently militarised company? Is there a contradiction here?

Free Trader
mail e-mail: free_trader2002@yahoo.co.uk

Get your facts right, mush

03.10.2003 10:48

The whole point about the Appledore shipyard is that it is one of Britain's last remaining CIVILIAN shipyards.

It went bankrupt because the local council decided to place an order for FERRIES (not warships ) elsewhere.

Don't let your contempt for the arms trade blind you to the fact that there are lots of other sorts of ships than warships. Support the Appledore workers.

Oh - and "Flaming Sword" - fuck right off with your specious and inaccurate comparisons. You and a bunch of your moronic right wing mates coming round my house to "blockade" me (for reasons you have failed to explain) hardly compares with a group of hardworking people trying to keep their industry alive, does it?

Yeah, so they blocked the gate with a digger. Wow, call out the Freikorps! Nobody was roughed up and nobody really minded. The owners are bankrupt and have washed their hands of it and the receivers were (as I said earlier), more than co-operative.

Your comments are really dumb. Please try and distinguish between "private property" and "personal property."

Responsible Reporter

Mush ado about nothing?

03.10.2003 13:05

Okay - okay, so Appledore makes more than warships, fantastic, more ships the better.

CIVILIAN yard? Well, there's the two patrol vessels they did for Ireland, Echo and Enterprise for the Royal Navy, and the bid for New Zealand's "Project Protector", which could get it a fair slice of US$300 million. Seriously, would Appledore be in the situation it's in now if it had got the £60 million order for 3 UK patrol vessels in March 2001? Workers should absolutely be supported, but a lot of folk on this board should see the inherent contradiction between denouncing companies involved in military equipment as baby murderers while simultaneously wanting to keep workers in these industries employed. It's called having your cake and eating it.

Maybe some of the 'heroes' who chained themselves to trains at DSEi should come down to Devon and see the consequences of their actions.

Free Trader
mail e-mail: free_trader2002@yahoo.co.uk

Missing the point

03.10.2003 13:21

Regarding the "inherent contradiction between denouncing companies involved in military equipment as baby murderers while simultaneously wanting to keep workers in these industries employed."

I would LOVE a less militarised world, with no warships and loads of fluffy civvy craft.

I just fail to see how closing down a shipyard and making 550 people unemployed will help to achieve this.

Appledore makes ships to order. In a less militarised world there would be less military orders. There's no sense in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A sense of proportion, please.

Responsible Reporter

To Irresponsible Reporter

04.10.2003 21:42

Sorry, asshole, your logic doesn't cut it. Just as *you* and you alone have the right to determine who comes and goes with regard to *your* property, the rightful owners/controllers of the shipyard have that VERY SAME total control of that property. Whether the "legal" owner/controller of that shipyard is the receiver or some other entity is immaterial--what is quite clear is that the FORMER workers their DO NOT have any right to control that property.

Flaming Sword

Thanks for your comments but get off are backs "Flaming Sword"

22.10.2003 11:22

We the representatives of the workers of Appledoore shipbuilders wish to put the “FLAMING SWORD” back in his scabbard,

We took control of the shipyard following the owners and management mismanagement, cumulating in 15 wk’s of short time working, the company failed to pay Septembers pension contributions and Stole our last weeks pay along with our holiday pay.

We have now only £54.56 job seekers allowance to manage on for 4 weeks, and will receive £109.00 fortnightly after that,

Many men have been employed for over forty years never having claimed a penny from the sate in that time.

We are not red militants or thugs, we are simply ordinary working class people who wish to remain employed doing what we do best BUILDING SHIPS to the very highest quality,

If the inept management had show half as much commitment as the employees along with you in wrighting letters on the internet we would still be trading profitably today,

As you only go under an alias we cannot respond to you personally but would gladly meet with you and discuses your twisted views.

UNITY IS STRENGTH

"Joint Shop stewards Committee" Appledore Shipbuilders
mail e-mail: appledorefuture@hotmail.com

FLAMING SWORD FLAMING PRICK

22.10.2003 14:51

This prick called flaming sword, "must be a conservative" doesent have a clue what he's on about. These men at appledore are only trying to safegaurd their jobs and jobs for future generations. These men do not want to claim £54.00 a week job seekers.
Shipbulding has been going on at appledore for four hundred years and i'm sure will continue. " best of luck to appledore"

a mainwareing

Foolishness of UK politicians

26.10.2003 09:56

If the UK government had followed the true and wise visions of our European friends,and fully integrated into the EU and the Euro,I am sure that Appledore Shipbuilders would now be a flourishing business rather than the state it is in now.
On behalf of all committed Europeans I can only admire the tenacity of its workforce( especially the magnificent work being done by it's Shop Stewards)and trust that it will soon become vibrant once again.

Fred Oathill

Fred Oathill