Workers at Belfast's struggling Harland and Wolff shipyard have been told they need to step up productivity if the yard is to have any future.
The yard confirmed today it held talks with workers and unions last week to stress the need to improve work rates, to ensure that current work is completed on time and to give the company a chance of winning orders.
The yard, which last year made 900 people redundant and only employs about 500 core workers, has only one order on its books.
It is building two ferries for the British Ministry of Defence, which are due for delivery in the last quarter of next year and the first quarter of 2003.
A company spokesman said: "Performance needs to improve immediately. Unless we have performance at the level which is required by the market, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to secure orders."
But he denied a claim by a trade union leader that workers were given an ultimatum that if productivity did not increase within two weeks work on the Ministry of Defence order it would be moved to another yard.
Mr Jackie Nicholl, president of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, said: "Shop stewards have reported to me that they have been told if things don't improve the management will take steps to have work on the order carried out at another yard, possibly outside the United Kingdom. Poland has been mentioned".
PA