Magnox streamlines UK operations
An organizational restructuring of UK company Magnox Ltd as it streamlines its operating model will lead to a reduction of up to 1600 staff across its UK sites over the period to September 2016.
The announcement follows the 1 April completion of a merger between Magnox and Research Sites Restoration Ltd (RSRL) to form a single organization, operating as Magnox Ltd and responsible for 12 UK nuclear sites: ten Magnox reactor sites plus research sites at Harwell and Winfrith. The last Magnox reactor to remain in operation, Wylfa 1, is due to shut down at the end of this year.
According to the company, the proposed staff reductions arise from "planned step downs in the work program at a number of sites and the implementation of a more streamlined operating model for delivering decommissioning". The company expects to reduce its staff by 1400-1600 across all 12 sites. The reduction will come from the company's own staff as well as agency and contract workers.
Magnox has said it will work to mitigate the impact of the reductions by emphasising voluntary redundancy, reskilling and the potential for alternative employment in Magnox Limited's parent companies, Cavendish Nuclear and Fluor Corporation. The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in September 2014 awarded a 14-year contract to become the parent body organization for the sites to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership - a joint venture between the UK's Cavendish Nuclear, part of Babcock International, and US-based Fluor Corporation.
Formal collective consultations with recognised trades unions and individual consultation and counselling staff have already begun, the company said.
Although the need to review staffing levels as decommissioning progresses has long been recognised, the GMB union, which represents UK nuclear industry workers, said in a statement that it had always envisaged that many of the workers affected would eventually move over to work on nuclear new-build sites. However, the UK's new-build program is not yet under way.
Gary Smith, GMB national secretary for energy, promised that the union would seek talks with Magnox and the NDA to discuss the job losses and the lack of progress on nuclear new build. "Disarray in the nuclear sector is leading to delays and now Hinkley Point C is being held up," he said, calling for the NDA to be re-tasked to push forward the development of new nuclear in the UK.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News
