Workers at a Merseyside shipyard which built the UK polar research ship, RRS Sir David Attenborough, have voted to strike in a row over pay and conditions.

Electricians, pipe-fitters and welders and others at Cammell Laird shipyard on Birkenhead, are building submarines and ships for the UK’s Royal Navy.

Of those workers which voted to walk-out, this was around 96%, which represents 75% of the more than 400 union members of the unions, Unite and the GMB which are taking part in the ballot.

More on the story from the Independent.

A recent caller to one of the shipyard’s dry-docks, as Afloat previously reported, was the newly introduced UK-Channel Islands ropax Conder Islander which went for repairs. The ferry has returned to Conder Ferries service and at time of writing is sailing from St. Helier, Jersey to Portsmouth.

It is from the English Channel port where the RRS Sir David Attenborough last month departed on its first Antarctica science mission to study the impact of environmental changes on ecosystems and sea ice.