I am getting fed up over all the hype over Bombardier failing to win the ThamesLink contract. I have sympathy for those who are to lose their jobs at Bombardier but it seems that the media and unions are exaggerating, misleading and hyping up. I can see the unions want another reason to have a go at the government but the media can just be trying to justify their jobs.
Let us start with the headline, Bombardier loses contract for ThamesLink trains - they never had it so they can therefore not lose it. It is more accurate to say that they failed to win the contract.
Next, the nationality of the company. Much is made of the fact that Siemens is German. Well those who think that Bombardier is British should look into it. Bombardier is a Canadian company and their rail division is headquartered in Germany. Not so British eh? Not to mention that the media always pronounce the name in a way that sounds French - should be Bomb-buh-deer if it is British. Bombardier would have kept jobs in the UK if they had won the contract but Siemens are also stating that they will create jobs in the UK to work on the contract.
With regards to job losses, most of these were scheduled to happen regardless of whether or not the ThamesLink contract had been awarded to Bombardier. The figures released are that 980 contracts were not to be renewed. This is the nature of contracting and these positions were to go anyway. It is possible that many of these people will find employment with Siemens given their skill set. 446 permanent positions are said to be going which would not have gone if the contract had been won.
Siemens are estimating they will create some 2,000 jobs on the contract - it is possible that a number of those no longer employed by Bombardier will be able to take up these positions, who knows at this stage. The net effect however is some 500 or so extra jobs in the UK economy.
The unions however have some hidden calculations that suggest the loss of 1,500 or 500 jobs, whichever figure you prefer, will lead to 13,000 extra job losses and billions of pounds cost to the economy. I find this hard to believe but I doubt we will see any detailed explanation of their figures.
As a parting shot, I wonder how many of those complaining buy French cars, Japanese TV's, German washing machines etc for the same reason that the government issued the contract to Siemens?
Bombardier is a Canadian company, but when I turn up for work on Monday to weld the inter end for VLU trains, the man next me will be British and next to him British and next to him British and so on. This story is repeated all over our Derby site from designers to engineers to cleaners, all paying taxes and spending our money, to help build our way out of this sh*t we are all in.
ReplyDeleteThe 2,000 jobs at Siemens is just spin to win the contract they include shot term jobs building depots.
500 just the start without orders soon there will be 1,500 more. Then if we close we will have lost the capacity to build trains in the UK and all future contracts will leave the country.
Is the point of this blog that you do not care?
I don't deny that the workforce are British, but then so will be most of the Siemens workforce and they too will pay taxes and spend money in the UK economy.
ReplyDeleteI do care about industry in the UK, we are losing too much of the manufacturing capacity that used to make Britain Great.
In the past I have worked for companies with a large dependence upon government contracts and we too had losses when those contracts weren't awarded or existing contracts were ended.
It affects all of us in some way. We need to work together to ensure that the British bid is the best bid and therefore will win the contract.
I buy British where possible, but in so many areas nowadays there is either no British option available or it is so expensive as to be uneconomical.
I think there are a number of issues here.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, the Government report that they opted for Siemens because it was the best value for money. The taxpayer will probably never get to see the figures, and to be fair would probably not understand them. If this is the case however then there is an element of common sense here. If you are replacing your car and have two models of similar specifications to choose from, would you choose the Honda, made in Swindon by British workers at £25,000 or the Citroen made in France by French workers at £20,000?
Secondly we have to ask why the Bombardier bid was not as competitive as the Siemens bid. Do they have higher material costs, is it due to higher labour costs, or was it simply that they built in a larger margin either to cover unforseen factors or extra profits? Again we will never know this but it would be interesting. It is unlikely that Siemens would bid in such a way that they would not make a profit - that would be a very dangerous strategy.
Finally, and I can see this leading to a post in it's own right, why do we submit our country so much to Europe - we are in the EU but it seems to be one way with the UK not benefitting from the membership. We bail out other countries because of issues with the Euro, of which we are not part, despite not having the money ourselves.
This stems back to successive governments creating greater ties with Europe but without safeguards. In particular the last government signed us up to a treaty which took away a lot of our control, without giving us the promised referendum. Funny that so many governments, of whichever political persuasion, promise the people a referendum when an important issue comes up but never lets it happen - usually with the line that 'the people would not understand the issue'.
Researching the past of Bombardier in Derby it is interesting to note that Bombardier took fairly significant action only seven years ago to keep the site open. This was at the cost of other Bombardier sites. See article here - http://ow.ly/5KIud
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is that unless Bombardier can offer competitive bids to get what little rail work there is then they will be at risk.
They should play Siemens at their own game and make competitive bids for contracts in other countries where perhaps there is more investment in rail projects.
As an aside, could all the protesting about HS2 cause further problems - if the project is delayed or cancelled then either the work will be too late for Bombardier to bid for or non existant?
Post on HS2 coming soon.
We have now had the march in Derby to try and persuade the government to reverse their decision.
ReplyDeleteA number of the placards held by the marchers were suggesting that they wanted to bring down the present government. Interesting as that would presumably mean replacing it with a Labour government. As one of the speakers - Margaret Beckett (Lab) said on the day 'Blame us (Labour) for the tender process. Then [let the government] take the credit for changing its mind. I don't care. Just do the right thing.'
She is admitting that Labour had a large part to play in this situation yet the marchers wanted to bring Labour back to power. Most odd.
I was also disappointed to see the resources tied up in the march. There were the direct and obvious Police who were there to monitor what was as far as I am aware a peaceful and positive march. Then we have the follow up of the council having to clean up all the discarded placards, flags and leaflets.
Will this make the government change it's mind. Personally I doubt it but the marchers were right to express their views. And as I say I believe it was peaceful, violence as seen on other (unrelated) marches achieves nothing excpet alienating those whos support you are asking for,
I think we need to look at future projects such as HS2 http://scepticalcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2011/07/hs2-my-view.html to help save jobs in the UK
ReplyDelete