Proposed job cuts at UKNNL puts into doubt government’s lofty claims for nuclear, says Prospect
Plans to cut around 200 jobs at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory, around a fifth of its current workforce, puts into question the government’s claims of a ‘golden age of nuclear’, says Prospect.
The news of the proposed job cuts, and Prospect’s concerns, was revealed in the Financial Times (£) today, Wednesday 18 March.
“This would be a huge loss of skilled nuclear capability at exactly the time we are trying to scale up,” Sue Ferns OBE, Prospect’s senior deputy general secretary, told the FT.
The UKNNL’s stated mission ‘is to enable and deliver nuclear outcomes for government, and to support growth of the UK nuclear sector.’
It is owned by the government but is primarily dependent on commercial income and Prospect says that the need to cut staff, via a combination of voluntary and compulsory redundancies, seems to be driven by rising costs and financial difficulties.
In the FT piece, Sue Ferns also gave the following context on the workforce:
The staff at risk of redundancy were “highly specialised” and unlikely to find similar roles near the UKNNL’s main sites, making the government’s recent announcement of a £65mn expansion of doctoral training places in nuclear science look “completely incoherent.”
Since late last year, Prospect, and other unions in the nuclear sector, have also been campaigning against job cuts at the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
Unions launch ‘What A Waste’ campaign to stop job cuts in nuclear decommissioning
For its part, the UKNNL told the FT that it was consulting with trade unions, ‘on proposals that may involve changes to our organisation and a reduction in roles.”
It added that no final decisions had been taken.
Prospect has also set up its online tool that enables members to easily and quickly contact their local MP urging them to help protect jobs ay UKNNL.
