The Lincolnshire refinery where the current dispute began is owned by the US oil company Total. It employs the giant American engineering company Jacobs which then subcontracts to an Italian firm, IREM, which cut its labour costs by using its own Italian and Portuguese workers. Big engineering contractors have been recruiting compliant and cheap foreign labour for years...posted by Abiezer at 4:03 AM on February 1, 2009 [10 favorites]
...British and European labour market policies have centred on the drive for flexibility. The increase in short-term contracts, agency work, subcontracting and use of the "self-employed" have left workers with fewer rights. The workforce in Britain is one of the least protected in that market. Growth in employment has been concentrated in low-skill, low-wage jobs in poor conditions. The growing use of temporary and agency workers is spreading these conditions to other parts of the economy.
But worse has been a series of court rulings that have further deregulated labour markets. In 2003 the Finnish ferry company Viking Line reflagged its vessel and employed an Estonian crew, cutting its wage costs by 60%. Its actions were upheld by the European court of justice. In 2004 a Latvian company, Laval, sent workers to building sites in Sweden. The Swedish construction union asked the company to agree to the existing collective agreement within the building sector. It refused, operating instead under the Latvian agreement - including lower pay that undercut the Swedish workers' wages. Again, the court ruled in the company's favour. Workers' conditions and pay need only comply with the laws of the company's home country.
This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the governmentSo, in reference to the story above: Should they happily allow their multinational employer to hand jobs to the other side of the continent, and swell these <foaming rel="mouth">massed ranks of workshy, handout-grabbing layabouts wrecking this country</foaming>, or should they stand up and protest at their jobs being sent to the lowest bidder and devaluing everyone's skills and livelihoods?
Here's how it works:posted by Abiezer at 4:31 AM on February 1, 2009 [74 favorites]
Ex 1/ British and US companies lose construction bids to Korean companies in Saudi Arabia, because the Korean companies' "workers" are actually soldiers on a pitance of military pay, doing their military service with "Dong-Ah" Construction Company, thus able to undercut normal workers and unable to have a day off without being subject to court martial. Hard to compete with soldiers being paid USD 100/Mo
Ex 2/ Sheraton Hotel in Algiers built by a Chinese construction company, whose workers are lodged in compounds which they can't leave and are fed garbage. They work in three shifts, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week with no break and no vacation, and rotate in the bunk beds.
Ex 3/ Burj Dubai built with imported "en masse" Indian and Filipino workers who live in same conditions, and have passports removed so they can't go on strike and can be deported, and are typically not paid on time, while Dubai residents go skiing in their enclosed "Green" refrigirated ski run.
This is not "free movement of capital and labour". This is the cynical tactic of "divide to rule" to break the rights of workers everywhere by shipping in foreign workers "en masse" and creating "closed systems". This enables two birds to be killed with one stone: a) the imported workers are lost in a foreign environment, can't communicate locally on the job market, and are frightened to assert their rights as human beings, and b) this enables workers protected in the UK to be conveniently circumvented.
Such arrangements are typically outsourced so that the contracting company cannot be sued directly, in other words they evade the spirit of the law, in the name of so called "freedom of movement".
Were the Italian workers in this case individuals in the local labour market, this would constitute freedom of movement of labour. As they are sourced "en masse" by the subcontractor, this is a technique of exploiting cheap labour elsewhere and effectively sidelining the British workers. It is an effort to find the most disenfranchised and helpless workers and exploit them. It smells like the Atlantic Slave Trade.
It is not the British worker on strike who is racist. It is the company who is seeking the weakest and most disenfranchised worker to exploit him in alien surroundings who is racist, or perhaps a better word would be inhuman.
Doing so paradoxically renders the so called "consumers" necessary for stimulating economic activity so destabilised and unconfident that they can no longer be an efficient "consumer".
Those proponents of "free trade" are either so naive they believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, or else they are cynical SOBs who don't care about people, which is the more likely possibility.
“We need to make a stand now. This is not a racist protest. I’m happy to work hand-in-hand with foreign workers, but we are not getting a look in.Of course, if you keep writing off the genuine grievances of working class people while the far right embrace them with open arms and point them in racist and xenophobic directions, you needn't be surprised if there's an upsurge in far right voting. Or if you find yourself living on a barge a thousand miles away from your family working for half what you made ten years ago.
“There are guys at this site who had been banking on that work and then it gets handed to an Italian firm. It’s about fairness.”
"We want to be careful with the nationalism, lads, so that things don't turn nasty. I've got nothin against the Italian workers as such, they're just doing a job, putting food on the table for their families. They're not W*** (Without Papers- as they are EU citizens and are legally allowed to work here)- besides this is racist. Many of us have worked abroad - Germany, Spain, Middle East - did we think or care about jobs in those countries? Getting at the workers is just going to give us a bad reputation, and turn the public against us.Of course there'll be petty nationalism and worse bandied about; it's what this bloke's arguing against obviously. There's also plenty working hard to ensure that nationalism is how this gets framed and Unite (the union) aren't being much cop. But to repeat - as the man says - the core issue is the hiring procedures and joining in with the various forces that want to make this a nationalist issue does no-one any good - other than the scummy bosses who played that card first, of course.
The problem is with the tenders, Total management and probably the govt. for allowing foreign companies to undercut. The govt. shouldn't allow this to happen. They haven't thought about the social price to the area, only the price of the contract.
These jobs should go to British workers, cos we can do the work and we need it. Just leave the racism and aggro at home- it doesn't do anyone any favours."
This is about lazy employers taking the easy option and bringing in compliant, cheap labour from overseas. In the good times - with plenty of work - these facts were disguised by the health of the economy...Bad is that the press in Italy and Spain are reporting these as anti-foreigner strikes so that's ratcheting up the tensions too.
Jacobs, the main contractor at the Lincolnshire refinery is notorious in the industry. They have offered cleaning jobs to UK workers and contracted the mechanical work to IREM - who have hired Italian and Portuguese labour. And this is happening at Staythorpe... at Uskmouth... on the Isle of Grain - across the whole of the UK energy sector.
Some in the Government say nothing can be done about this - a counsel of despair that just will not do. They are simply wrong...
People I talk to think blacklists are operating against UK labour in the industry - and this has to be faced head on...
Over the past few years a number of rulings in the European Court of Justice have whittled down the protections for people at work - and played right into the hands of those corporations that want to pitch one group of workers against another.
Time and again the European courts have ruled on the side of employers. Workers' conditions and pay need now only comply with the laws in their home country and not, for example, union negotiated rates for engineers in this country. Companies can now "post" workers from one country to another on the basis of the lower standards operating in the home country - the free movement of labour gone mad...
There was always going to be trouble over the Bolkestein EU Posted Workers Directive passed in 1999, but it has taken an ugly recession and fast rising unemployment to bring it to the fore explosively at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. The directive was designed to ensure that the EU was treated as a single labour marketplace where employers had a legal right to hire workers from anywhere in the (now 27) EU countries. The only conditions for the employer are that the employment contract is for a limited time and that local working regulations must be met, e.g. that in the UK at least the minimum wage (now £5.83 per hour) must be paid. But this raises the question as to whether this directive can be used by European companies to deprive local workers of potential jobs and to undercut pay and terms and conditions of work. In this harsh economic downturn this issue will not go away because the directive in its original crude form is not tenable in current political and economic conditions.There are racists and far right parties sniffing around this seeking to make capital and push things their way (they may well succeed in manufacturing a few incidents in the days to come); you have the government, press in the UK and Italy and employers in unholy alliance with them wanting to reduce this to a purely nationalist question, but it is ultimately about how globalisation is playing out - even arch liberal Polly Toynbee understands this.
Crucially, it is not known what are the pay rates that the Italian firm IREM is paying the 400 Italian and Portuguese workers whom it is importing to undertake the £220 million contract to build a desulphurisation plant at Lindsey. Nor is it clear if it is true, as Unite officials assert, that IREM is pursuing a policy of refusing to accept British workers in any circumstances; if that were true, it is clearly illegal and the Government would have grounds to intervene and re-allocate the contract.
What however is very worrying - since this could be the first flashpoint out of many in future - is that IREM is bringing in foreign workers because they are entitled under the Bolkestein free market directive (Bolkestein was a right-wing Dutch Christian Democrat) to pay significantly below local pay rates, so long as it is not below the national minimum wage. This entitlement was recently reinforced by the notorious Laval case at the European Court of Justice where the ECJ ruled that a company was legally entitled to import foreign workers and pay them at the rate prevailing in the country from which they come (e.g. Latvia), not the rate prevailing at the place where the work was to be undertaken. This established a deregulated labour market place where the employer's right to pay the lowest rates was elevated above the unions' collectively negotiated local rate. This judge-made law is a timebomb destined to cause severe labour conflict till it is repealed.
It is important however that the Lindsey dispute should be seen in perspective. This is not about xenophobia, however unfortunate the pronouncement about 'British jobs for Briish workers' may have been. Equally misguided are Mandelson's comments on the Lindsey action that "protectionism would be surefire way of turning recession into depression". Seeking to stop foreign workers undercutting wage rates is not protectionism. The protectionism that plunged the 1930s into deep depression was trade restraints and restrictive monetary and fiscal policies.
In the last analysis the central issue here is this: do the EU labour market laws override even if the outcome in a vicious recession is a race to the bottom, or do those market laws have to be amended to take account of current economic realities? Clearly they do, because otherwise political tensions in the next weeks and months will be sharply inflamed across the whole EU and local workers in country after country will be victimised. With the election looming and the recession worsening by the day, this is a defining moment for the Government.
Brussels on Wednesday waded into the UK’s industrial dispute over employing foreign workers, promising to take a closer look at how European Union rules governing the free movement of labour are affecting employees.Also turns out the Portugese workers were indeed being paid about 1,000 euros a month less than their British counterparts would have been. IREM is a notorious union-buster and further links have been forged with groups in Italy.
In a move that could hamper employers’ ability to undercut local wage levels by hiring workers from cheaper EU member states, Vladimir Spidla, the commissioner for employment, said the European Commission was “ready to study and to develop any new measures necessary to face a changing world”.
Laws governing the free movement of labour in the EU have come under scrutiny following a series of strikes at UK oil refineries, sparked by the hiring of foreign workers in areas hit by rising unemployment.
In an apparent concession to opponents of the current regime, Mr Spidla said he had commissioned a series of studies “to better understand the impact of the directive on the ground and the consequences of European court rulings”. People close to the Commission said that a rewriting of the framework law – the “posting of foreign workers” directive – was not likely but that member states could be pushed into interpreting the laws in a way more favourable to local employees.
The move came as the dispute at the centre of the affair was nearing resolution, with shop stewards at the Lindsey refinery poised to recommend an end to the illegal strike on Thursday.
Under a deal mediated by Acas, the UK’s conciliation body, about 100 jobs will be made available to British workers, though union leaders insisted those positions did not replace the foreign contractors who sparked the dispute.
“No Italian worker will lose their job as a result of this deal,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, one of the unions involved.
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, another union, said it wanted the UK government to amend legislation “to correct the botched implementation into British law of the EU 1996 Posted Workers Directive”.
One of the unions’ grievances, which Brussels may focus on, is the impact of a series of rulings at the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg, which have weakened local workers’ protection.
“There’s not a lot the Commission can do beyond asking states to look again at the implementation,” said Stefan Corbanie, a Brussels-based lawyer at Eversheds. He warned that further erosion of free movement principles would come up against clauses in European treaties.
The Commission was partly responding to vocal criticism of the directive in the European parliament where a contingent of left-leaning members have threatened to derail the confirmation process of the next European Commission.
The Party of European Socialists, expected to form a large bloc in spring European elections, said “we are not joining this campaign but we are certainly not ruling it out”.
In the UK, Gordon Brown, prime minister, welcomed the publication of employers’ guidelines insisting that local workers should be considered for future projects and defended his use of the slogan “British jobs for British workers”. Mr Brown said he wanted UK workers to be trained and considered for jobs, but said he would continue to fight protectionism. David Cameron, Conservative leader, said Mr Brown should be “ashamed” of stirring up nationalistic sentiment.
It has suited government ministers, the CBI and the most backward parts of the British media to present the multiple walkouts by engineering construction workers at refineries and power stations across Britain during the past week as a spasm of xenophobic protest against foreign workers and migration...posted by Abiezer at 6:11 AM on February 5, 2009
The strikers haven't scapegoated the non-union Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish workers brought in by subcontractors to replace local labour, let alone called for their sacking or repatriation. They've targeted the employers and the government. The more nationalistic slogans have largely been replaced - "workers of the world unite" even made an appearance at Total's Lindsey oil refinery - and union activists have made short work of BNP infiltrators.
Far from being any kind of echo of the small minority of east London dockers who backed Enoch Powell in 1968, the real nature of this dispute was shown by the hundreds of Polish workers who joined the sympathy stoppage at Langage power station in Plymouth on Tuesday: not a campaign for privileges for indigenous against foreign workers, but for the rights of access of all workers in Britain to jobs, and against the use of foreign-based contract labour to exclude or undercut them.
That was underlined yesterday by a joint statement in the name of engineering, construction and chemical workers' unions across Europe identifying the British strike campaign as part of a wider expression of "anger by working people at the prevailing EU settlement which prioritises the needs of business and capital over those of labour"...
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