A campaign has been launched to try and save the Arnish manufacturing yard on Lewis.
The site is due to close within two weeks or so with only a relatively small number of personnel left.
A small care and maintenance team will be kept on at the mothballed site.
The workforce gradually decreased from a peak of around 160 people.
At the last minute the yard was saved from long term closure in November after cash-
Engineering union GMB Scotland is campaigning to rescue the jobs and held a meeting today with BiFab bosses over the facility’s future.
They also had talks with development agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and met with workers on Thursday.
Union official Alan Ritchie said: “Work is quickly running out at Arnish.”
The union is fighting hard to doing everything they can to “keep the Arnish yard alive” and protect island jobs, he added.
Mr Ritchie said he “put a number of issues to HIE” during talks in Stornoway.
He added: “We need to focus to get work into the yards.
“We have been speaking to HIE on a number of matters over the need to explore ways to save Arnish.”
The agreement made three months ago to get the “Beatrice contract back on track comes to an end at the end of January for Arnish,” he said.
Ultimately, Bifab has an empty order book and new contracts are urgently required to provide work and allow personnel to return to their jobs.
A HIE spokesperson said: “We are working with all parties concerned to secure the best possible outcome for employees and the local economy.
“Due to the commercial, sensitive and changing nature of the situation we are unable to comment further at this time.”
Isles MP Angus Brendan MacNeil said the immediate future was “not great” but Arnish had huge potential for the longer term.
Mr MacNeil said: “Arnish is a fantastic yard with rolling facilities second to none in the UK.
This is an opportunity for developers to place manufacturing contracts at the site.
“The expertise, machinery and facilities are all there,” he added.
Key to the situation is “tiding this period over” to keep the skills on the island as there the likelihood of major fabrication work coming up for tender later this year.
Donald Crichton, development chirman at the comhairle expressed “support and sympathy with the workforce” who are losing their jobs.
He added: “We have written to (Scottish economy secretary) Keith Brown -
Mr Crichton highlighted the Arnish facility is “crucial to our economy” and the scale of the redundancies has the equivalent impact of “nearly 4000 jobs being lost in Glasgow.”
In November, BiFab was “within minutes” of closing a number of times during tense negotiations over its severe cash crisis.
But Scottish Government intervention save BiFab’s bases in Stornoway, Methil and
Burntisland after talks -
Fight to save Arnish manufacturing yard
19 January 2018