Sinopacific Shipbuilding is getting rid of its ship design department in Shanghai, letting go of more than 50 employees in the process as the company deals with financial difficulties.
Sinopacific is currently in negotiations with the employees over severance payments, however when contacted by Splash an official from Sinopacific denied that the company is having financial issues and declined to comment more on the matter.
Evidence of financial problems at Sinopacific arose earlier this month, when over 100 employees from Dayang Shipyard protested at a local district government office in Yangzhou to complain about their salary payments being delayed. After negotiations with the employees and the shipyard, the local government proceeded to pay the employees from a government account to settle with the shipyard later.
In September 2015, over 1000 workers at Dayang protested at the shipyard over unpaid salaries. Later Sinopacific said it had resolved the dispute, claiming that it has no financial difficulties in paying salaries with the delay due to an internal restructuring which slowed down the fund approval process.
