Portuguese Shipbuilding
The shipbuilding sector was a strategic one in the 1960s and 1970s in Portugal. Today it holds a modest place in Portuguese industry and is reaching out to form international ties. Trade union proposals to revive the sector are primarily directed at the national market. With regard to human resources strategies, the crisis and restructuring that the sector has undergone have been surmounted by fragmenting a workforce that, in the 1970s, was one of the most powerful groups of workers in Portugal.
The Portuguese shipbuilding industry had the oldest workforce in the European shipbuilding industry as of 2008, with almost 75% of the employees over 40 years of age. This situaton has developed due tothe fact that during the 1970s Portuguese shipyards had to make contract agreements that were hampering the recruiting of new employees until today.
A number of industries/subsectors related to the sea are considered relevant for the Portuguese economy, including shipbuilding and ship repair, ports, logistics and freight, fishing, aquaculture and fisheries industry, naval and maritime authorities, entertainment, sports, tourism and culture, maritime insurance and finance. Overall, the Portuguese shipbuilding and ship repair industry has competitive advantages due to its geographical location, weather conditions and the availability of skilled labor. It is a strategic sector in Portugal, providing employment and generating wealth in a wide range of industries. Portugal has shipyards with relevant capacity; however, these face strong competition from countries with cheap labor or from more technologically advanced countries.
The shipbuilding and repair industry, which by 2000 consisted almost entirely of ship repair, accounts for 50% of what is referred to as the "transport material construction industry" in Portugal. It represents 3.7% of the country's entire "transformation" industry sector. The industry includes both wooden shipyards operated by a number of small enterprises, and metal shipyards run by about a dozen enterprises. Some of these enterprises also serve as repair shops for fishing vessels or maritime transport vessels.
The shipyards of Margueira, Mitrena and Viana do Castelo stand out in the industry because of their ability to compete in the external market. The Viana do Castelo Shipyard, which has been undergoing restructuring, is a state-owned enterprise and employs around 1,200 workers. Margueira and Mitrena were nationalised in the 1970s, but were later reprivatised when the government launched a plan in 1992 to restructure the shipbuilding industry. The Lisnave shipyards at Margueira and Mitrena retook this pre-nationalisation name after being reacquired by their original owners.
After the year 1400 the progress of discovery by the Portuguese to the south Portugal, and east, and by the Spaniards to the west, in the voyages Spain, of Columbus, with the consequent rapid increase in the importance of these two powers, and the influence of their discoveries on the state of Europe, renders the fifteenth century probably the most important of modern history. In it was given the death-blow to the increase of the Saracenic power, and to that of the Mediterranean states. The Turk, the Venetian, and the Genoese, had hitherto been the monopolizers of the commerce of the east. The discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope Passage opened this trade to all nations.
Portugal pushed her discoveries round the Cape, and Spain had added America to the world. It was not increase of dimensions which was to be the object in designing new vessels, the direction of improvementmust have been towards perfecting their forms, strengthening their frames, and adding to the efficiency of their materiel. Portugal by these means became the most advanced state of Europe in knowledge of the art of shipbuilding; for it was long supposed that the passage to India required ships such as the Portuguese alone could build. Spain, in her career of discovery, conquest, and colonization across the mighty waters of the Atlantic, as if to assimilate the means to the vastness of her achievements, rapidly acquired the art of constructing ships of very large dimensions; and as long as she possessed a marine, her ships maintained this superiority.
Portuguese industrialization developed slowly until the end of the 19th century. It is at this time that industrial activity begins in branches with a low organic levels of capital (canned fish, textiles, etc). With the relative increase of industrial capital, the proletariat formed slowly and developed progressively through the years. Under the first Republic (1910-1926), the low industrial concentration contributes to the dispersion of workers, through many companies, despite a certain concentration in a number of urban centers (including Lisbon and Porto).
Portugal's shipbuilding industry at the time of the Great War was limited to small boats, except in the case of the State, which built many of its war vessels. There was no extensive demand for marine hardware required in building ships. That which was used was required for repairs and replacements. There was practically no domestic manufacture of marine hardware except rope, cable, chains, lanterns and lamps, and various small articles. Nearly all the marine hardware imported came from Germany and England. Marine hardware was generally carried by ship-chandlers' stores and special dealers in marine goods of all kinds, including oilskins, shins' provisions, etc. The marine hardware used by the Government is supplied by contracts, which were given to the lowest bidder. The marine hardware imported from England, which at led the market, was of good quality but was not very expensive.
Two destroyers under construction at the Portuguese Naval Arsenal (Arsenal da Marinha) were launched in 1916. Keels were laid at once for two more destroyers, the first of a new series of larger tonnage planned for the Portuguese Navy. The new boats had liquid combustion, four torpedo tubes, a speed of 35 to 38 miles an hour, and will be armed with 10-centimeter guns. Three submarines of wide radius of action were to be constructed at the arsenal on the ways occupied by two gunboats being built for fiscalization purposes.
During the period which runs from 1926 to 1945, productive forces grew at a pace which had not prevent building of capitalism. At the same time, the Salazar regime blocked the realization of reform projects. Repression, authoritarianism, resistance to the institutional opening and the beginnings of the corporate system of elements enablee this period. Variables that characterise the plan are the following: a policy of low wages and enterprise class organizations, corporate control internal competition, unequal exchange between the metropolis and colonies and the beginning of the effort of substitution of imports.
The Rocha shipyard has been the subject of a thorough historical monograph. In the 1930s there were frequent cases of traditional haggling, or the employers delegated the functions of organization, of distribution and monitoring of labor leaders of teams of professionels, for a negotiated price. The team leader paid the workers recruited, under the staff authority distributed the task of concrete qualities of labour and time limits requested by clients. In the 1940s a second phase, of the pre-taylorist systems, such as the premiums, served as a stimulant of worker performance utility, but which was too approximate. The organization of the work is based on a systeme, but there were already concerns to increase productivity and control cost and time.
In the 1950s, it evolved into a progressive control of capital on working conditions, what is being done by streamlining increasing of the production process: development of the technical staff; analysis, decomposition and preparation of the work; Standardization; empowerment services, maintenance) and workstations; control the performance and quality, operating modes, chronométra-.GE; coordination of activities; courses of vocational training, etc. The company becomes an organization of human resources and departmental, which is accompanied by a paternalistic policy to create a spirit-home (social work).
Naval repair has characteristics that influence the extension and depth of mechanization, automation and rationalization: non-recurring products, low level of composition organic capital, high levels of qualification, autonomy and versatility of workers; decentralization of decisions, with specific interventions of the head of ship, which establishes the liaison with the shipowner; important teams of work; flexibility of organization and control systems; longs cycles of work; internal mobility; unstable saturation time of work; frequent adjustments to programs, the importance of the informal communications and interpersonal relationships; high levels of working influence on labor. These features in the naval building, including repair, require models that are non-bureaucratic and flexible.
By 2000, trade unions and employers in the Portuguese shipbuilding industry are trying out new strategies in response to the crisis the sector is experiencing. Strategies revolve around: internal organisational restructuring; changes in collective bargaining, such as decentralisation and new topics for negotiation; and recourse to new human resources practices, such as outsourcing.
By 2010 some of the challenges facing this subsector were:
- increase of investment in the ship repair industry inorder to make the installed capacity profitable;
- innovation and specialization in niche markets with high value in terms of shipbuilding;
- the ability to internalise vital functions of high added value in the production process (both in terms of construction and in terms of ship repair) and better organisation and coordination of the outsourcing of low value-added functions;
- specialise in shipyards building sophisticated small and medium-sized vessels and incorporating high added value and advanced technology;
- re analyse technologies and processes used inshipbuilding and repair, taking into account the challenges of competitiveness and environmentalsustainability to come. Focusing on sustainable construction and repair industry as a differentiating factor, generating a unique value proposition;
- application of the techniques of shipbuilding and repair to other activities, diversifying the product portfolio.
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