British jobs for British workers?

February 1, 2009 3:32 AM

British jobs for British workers? Workers at a Total refinery in north Lincolnshire walked out in protest over an Italian firm importing Italian and Portuguese workers to complete an expansion. Since Wednesday, the walk out at the Lindsey refinery has snowballed into a mass industrial action across the UK. The majority of the strikes and protests have been by energy workers, though some in other sectors (steel) hit by closures and vulnerable to job offshoring have joined the action in solidarity. Brown's government is trying to respond, without much success.
posted by Grrlscout (111 comments total)

Media are framing it in purely nationalist terms; there's been those sort of slogans but if you read interviews with the workers on strike they all emphasise they have no problem working alongside overseas colleagues, it's really about the way the contracts are excluding local workers:

This weekend the conciliation service, Acas, was continuing to try to calm the crisis that has seen workers at oil and power plants up and down the country stage unofficial protests in support of employees at the Lindsey refinery at North Killingholme. Lincolnshire. They are protesting at a decision by the refinery's owner, Total, to hand a £200m construction contract to the Italian company Irem, which employs only Italian and Portuguese workers on the site.

Similar protests have been made at two other construction projects -a refinery in Staythorpe, Nottinghamshire, and a power station on the Isle of Grain, Kent. In both cases, contractors working on behalf of foreign firms have said they will not use local labour.

posted by Abiezer at 3:45 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

I'm torn over this, because I think it's great that workers are sticking up for themselves, and it's crap that the refinery is importing cheap labor at the expense of the locals.
On the other hand, I feel really sorry for the Portuguese and Italians.

Interestingly enough, the job placement place down the street here in Salzburg is advertising for electrical workers to work abroad, English skills a requirement.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:47 AM on February 1, 2009

heh, just wait until this story gets legs. To the barricades!
posted by troy at 3:55 AM on February 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

Companies in the UK bring in foreign workers because, typically, they work harder, faster, more efficiently and for less money than the equivalent British worker. This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the government. A few years of hard fucking graft is what this country needs.
posted by metaxa at 3:59 AM on February 1, 2009

heh2, apparently the LAHT is just a Chavez-affiliated agit-prop shop. Official debunkation, here. ~nevermind~
posted by troy at 3:59 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the government.
Fuck off, this is a group of skilled workers shafted by dodgy multinationals doing their utmost to circumvent labour agreements and divide-and-rule. John Cruddas nailed it in the Guardian yeasterday:

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...

...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.

posted by Abiezer at 4:03 AM on February 1, 2009 [10 favorites]

This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the government.

Not to mention a country of stupid Sun-and-Daily-Mail-reading cunts who believe everything they read in the tabloids.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:08 AM on February 1, 2009 [27 favorites]

Yep, and it's well seen the Daily Mail and Sun suddenly love striking workers to peddle their agenda. Meanwhile, here's a bloke on the striker's own forums emphasising how they don't want to get used by racists.
posted by Abiezer at 4:17 AM on February 1, 2009

metaxa, that's quite a brazen, and if I may add, obnoxious and ignorant, claim.

This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the government

So, 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?

It seems to me your statement is pretty disconnected from, say, the material at hand, or objective facts. But that's never stopped the Daily Mail either, has it?
posted by davemee at 4:17 AM on February 1, 2009 [6 favorites]

I don't think this story merits posting. It's too country-specific, and the story is not yet majorly significant. Although admittedly the link to the workers' forum a few comments up is quite interesting.
posted by haines at 4:23 AM on February 1, 2009

I think the workers have a good case, insofar as the principle that the jobs ought to be open to competition from British workers is sound. Of course, going too far and disallowing other EU workers from those jobs would be equally wrong. I suppose the workers could be essentially seen as arguing for the freedoms of the market; were British people to have the opportunity to contract their skills and labour on equal terms, that alone would be enough.

I grew up near where this dispute began, and though I'm biased, I would like to vouch that rather than being lazy cunts spoonfed benefits, many people there work hard enough for their pay, and don't deserve this kind of treatment. Towns like Grimsby, Immingham, and Scunthorpe, have suffered enough with the destruction of industry in the past few decades, that to see those people shut out off the economic growth taking place on their doorstep is pretty hard.

Metaxa, I note from your profile that you're from Sheffield; have a little compassion won't you? My father struck for the steel workers there, and the miners there, and the word 'Orgreave' is immediately followed by 'bastards'. You're angry at the wrong people.
posted by Sova at 4:24 AM on February 1, 2009

I don't get it, if they want to employ Italian labour, why don't they build it in Italy?

I'm pretty shocked that they can actually discriminate by citizenship like that anyway, how on earth do they get away with that under EU laws?
posted by jacalata at 4:25 AM on February 1, 2009

Why would anyone spoonfeed cunts? Some sort of piping bag would be a better idea.
posted by ShameSpiral at 4:28 AM on February 1, 2009 [12 favorites]

Here's a comment off the Guarduan that sets it out:

Here's how it works:

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.

posted by Abiezer at 4:31 AM on February 1, 2009 [74 favorites]

It's too country-specific.

He tagged it for that already.
posted by jacalata at 4:41 AM on February 1, 2009

Isn't this sort of thing somewhat self-defeating? What is the point of importing cheap foreign labor to build infrastructure or make products that the locals can't afford because they don't have jobs? (Pardon the naivete of the question, this is one of those things that seems appallingly obvious to me-- if I don't have a job because you're sending it overseas, or bringing overseas here in this case-- I'm not buying your widgets.)

I am ready to take notes.
posted by nax at 4:45 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Companies in the UK bring in foreign workers because, typically, they work harder, faster, more efficiently and for less money than the equivalent British worker. This is a country of lazy cunts spoonfed benefits from the government. A few years of hard fucking graft is what this country needs.

I didn't realise Richard Littlejohn had a MeFi account. Wonders will never cease.

I don't think this story merits posting. It's too country-specific, and the story is not yet majorly significant. Although admittedly the link to the workers' forum a few comments up is quite interesting.

I see you are quite new round here, don't worry you'll get used to it. I get really excited with the links that you can only access if you are in America.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 4:50 AM on February 1, 2009 [8 favorites]

Fascinating: I'm sure the 10 minutes of googling I just did have not given me a strong background in the sport, but it did seem to say that the official EU laws only protect 'the right of EU nationals to live and work in another member state'. It doesn't sound like it specifically prohibits discrimination between EU nationals AGAINST the locals.
posted by jacalata at 4:51 AM on February 1, 2009

nax- I'm no economist but I think the reason it doesn't make sense the way you constracted it is because your question treats the issue as if there is one party/person/class that will profit in the system. In this case there is a couple of groups of people that will benefit from the arrangement even though it undermines the economy/area in the long term. Due to the people involved being interested in the short term arrangement then the longer term consequences can go hang as far as they and their share holders care.

It is for exactly this reason that I think that the world would profit from 'The Man'- as in "working for the Man", "sold out to the Man" etc as at least The Man would look at longer term issues when making those decisions. You will be unsurprised to hear that I believe myself to be The Man for the job. I promise to be corrupt but have long term goals.
posted by Gratishades at 5:02 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've personally worked very closely with issues in this area, and I'm not very familiar with British immigration law, but if the UK is like most other countries in the world, British labor law probably includes a "citizens first" clause, i.e., that management is bound to hire British citizens first, and imported labor only when no national can or wants to do the job.

In reading the article, though, it seems the situation is complicated by the fact that the contractor isn't based in the UK, but in California. This probably gives the contractor plenty of room to hire anyone from any country, regardless of how labor law would apply to the energy concern that hired the contractor.

Furthermore, Total has said no British workers have lost their jobs or will lose their jobs to the imported labor, which probably weakens the strikers' position.

So what exactly is the complaint, then? Do unemployed British workers want these jobs? Because if no one is losing work or will lose work over this, it certainly does smack of nationalist alarmism.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:04 AM on February 1, 2009

Constructed I meant above- when are we getting the live edit button?
posted by Gratishades at 5:04 AM on February 1, 2009

So what exactly is the complaint, then?
That the sub-contracting system has been deliberately constructed to stop fair competition from qualified local workers, circumvent the law and undermine long-standing labour agreements.
"No-one is losing work" means Total are not laying off any full-time staff; these workers are contractors who were encouraged to be flexible and work on short-term contracts; now they find they're not allowed to compete fairly for employment.
posted by Abiezer at 5:11 AM on February 1, 2009

EU laws only protect 'the right of EU nationals to live and work in another member state'. It doesn't sound like it specifically prohibits discrimination between EU nationals AGAINST the locals.

The thing about EU labor law is it regards all of Europe as one area. Therefore, everyone is a "local". Contractors who negotiate with management in this area are free to regard the entirety of the EU as a labor pool, and they usually aim for whom they can pay the least in wages and benefits. Ideally, EU labor law is supposed to be the rising tide that lifts all boats, but realistically, standards of living vary from one EU country to the next. And so the disparity.

Having said that, I'd still like to know if British labor law has a "citizen's first" clause, and whether or not a foreign contractor would be bound to obey it.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:14 AM on February 1, 2009

Who earns what.
International comparison of gross average monthly salaries paid in the construction sector
UK £2,160
Portugal £614
Germany £1,806
Italy £1,386
France £1,046
Based on 2005 data collected by the International Labour Organisation and using currency exchange rates of the time ( via )
posted by adamvasco at 5:15 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

The locals are also annoyed that they have brought in a 'floating hotel' for the workers... so there's not even any money going into the local economy for hotel/hostal accommodation
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:15 AM on February 1, 2009

Ten minutes after I read this, I read this.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

The dozen banks receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for all American households.

The figures are significant because they show that the bailed-out banks, being kept afloat with U.S. taxpayer money, actively sought to hire foreign workers instead of American workers. As the economic collapse worsened last year — with huge numbers of bank employees laid off — the numbers of visas sought by the dozen banks in AP's analysis increased by nearly one-third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.

Suddenly, the original post doesn't seem as country-specific, just symptomatic of bad things happening everywhere.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 5:16 AM on February 1, 2009 [7 favorites]

That the sub-contracting system has been deliberately constructed to stop fair competition from qualified local workers, circumvent the law and undermine long-standing labour agreements.

The more I'm reading, the more it's sounding like exactly this. Of course, hiring a foreign contractor for the labor complicates the issue, because how much of UK labor laws apply to them gets murky.

I do hope the discussion in Britain stays focussed on management. These conflicts have a way of dropping the focus onto low wage earners from other countries just trying to earn a living.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:17 AM on February 1, 2009

I've not yet seen any reason why these companies are excluding British workers. All the sound & fury hinge on this one question. Concrete versions :

(1) Are they paying the Italian or Portuguese less? If so, the UK or EU must correct this. I doubt this however since they could simply offer the jobs advertising the low pay.

(2) Are they avoiding UK unionized labor for less immediate reasons? I'd find this much more likely than (1). If so, I suspect the unions will ultimately win.

(3) Do they find non-British workers simply do a better job? If so, their hiring practices are currently illegal, but they can resolve this by using test & such, effectively silencing the union. I also find this quite likely having lived in the UK.

(4) Do they hold some other prejudice against British workers? Such prejudices might include fights, alcoholism, etc. If so, the union has already won, unless they have some data supporting their prejudices. I'm sure they can screen employees for violence, alcoholism, etc. I find this even more likely than (3).

To me, the great irony is that (3) and (4) are the most illegal, but don't represent labour fraud like (1) and (2). I'd hope that (3) and (4) can be resolved by their HR department, refusing to hire alcoholics, administering tests, etc.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:19 AM on February 1, 2009

I've personally worked very closely with issues in this area, and I'm not very familiar with British immigration law, but if the UK is like most other countries in the world, British labor law probably includes a "citizens first" clause, i.e., that management is bound to hire British citizens first, and imported labor only when no national can or wants to do the job.

No, there is no such clause. Any EU citizen can work in the UK without a visa or any special permission.
posted by atrazine at 5:25 AM on February 1, 2009

I do hope the discussion in Britain stays focussed on management.
Sadly the tabloids (as I said above, having a rare moment of sympathy for strikers) are playing up the nationalist angle, the BNP (extreme nationalists) have moved in already, and half the liberals and plastic left, who can understand (quite rightly) that you support Palestinians in struggle despite the dubious views and behaviours of various Islamist parties, can't bring themselves to support their own working class because inevitably in a group of several thousand there's a few tossers.
posted by Abiezer at 5:26 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

Any EU citizen can work in the UK without a visa or any special permission.

That's how I've understood EU membership, too. As I said, they're all locals.

Sadly the tabloids (as I said above, having a rare moment of sympathy for strikers) are playing up the nationalist angle, the BNP (extreme nationalists) have moved in already, and half the liberals and plastic left, who can understand (quite rightly) that you support Palestinians in struggle despite the dubious views and behaviours of various Islamist parties, can't bring themselves to support their own working class because inevitably in a group of several thousand there's a few tossers.

Well that sucks. I guess it comes as no surprise though. Just more typical divisive classist rhetoric that keeps workers bickering with each other over instead of standing up to international management as one.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:35 AM on February 1, 2009

On the up side, reports I've read from friends have the BNP getting mostly short shrift and the strike committee are working to keep things focussed on the real issues.
posted by Abiezer at 5:39 AM on February 1, 2009

Is the current debate "focussed on management" aside from troy's link?

I'd say the whole point is that these jobs are "relatively unskilled" construction jobs where clearly the foreigners haven't received superior training. So the debate is more like the foreign workers may have stronger work ethic, etc. (illegal discrimination, but sympathetic) vs. the company want to circumvent British labor unions (not currently illegal, but unsympathetic).

In fact, once you discuss highly skilled jobs, like engineers, then U.K. universities simply don't produce enough qualified people, and you can blame British culture & pre-university education.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:43 AM on February 1, 2009

I agree with atrazine - there is definitely a general right (derived from EU law) for EU citizens to work in the UK without any special permission. I have been finding it hard to find a definitive statement of this on the BERR site, but I'm fairly sure there isn't an obligation on employers to employ UK workers first - the law the other way round, if you see what I mean.

jeffburdges - as Marisa says above: the idea of the EU is that through the blessings of an open market amongst the EU states we will all eventually reach equal pay, living standards, freedom, happiness etc etc. So that it runs counter to the ways in which the Union is supposed to work to 'fix' the facts that wages are unequal across different countries. As we've seen wages are different across countries - all an employer need do is offer a wage somewhere between Italian wages and UK wages to save cost while offering Italians willing to work away from home an incentive.

I wish I had your faith in the eventual victory of the unions - but the unions have been in a marked decline in this country for some time. 12% of the private sector workforce are now union members - 30 years ago it was 80%.
posted by calico at 6:02 AM on February 1, 2009

Marisa: as I gather it, the EU specifically prevents Britain from having a citizens first requirement. In Abiezer's first link, it mentions unions arguing for a law along these lines to be passed, but this would probably cause all sorts of trouble in reciprocal arrangements for Brits in the Continent. Interesting though it would be to watch from the other side of the world, I don't think it would be a good solution for Britain.From the same link, it sounds like the laws introduced in Britain for this law may have emphasised the right of foreigners to be hired, and perhaps not specified the rights of British.

As you said, contractors are free to regard the whole of Europe as a labor pool. However, this specifically denies them the right to restrict employees to those coming from any particular section of that pool, whether British or Italian. From the BBC link in the post ("The government has called in independent mediator Acas to look into claims that British workers are being illegally excluded from engineering and construction projects"), it sounds like this would be illegal, as I thought.
posted by jacalata at 6:12 AM on February 1, 2009

it's crap that the refinery is importing cheap labor at the expense of the locals.
keep in mind portugal is not some third-world country but a full-fledged member of the european union.

skilled workers shafted by dodgy multinationals doing their utmost to circumvent labour agreements
british leyland.

the united kingdom signed the papers to join the european union and signed the schengen deal. in my last year in london I have heard griping about polish workers taking jobs away, italian workers taking jobs away, portuguese workers taking jobs away and whatnot else from brits who didn't realize I was a german myself. these 'british jobs for brits' guys are assholes. they would love to exclude people with a british passport who don't look british to them as well. it's flat-out racism, xenophobia and protectionism and not some sort of justice-for-all movement. these jobs aren't being outsourced to a chinese province where kids do it for half the wage.

what's also being left out of this discussion is that the rest of the european union is open to bids from british companies as well. a briton can (and a sizable number do) work and live anywhere in the EU as well, as others have pointed out correctly.

casual racism and xenophobia are way too accepted in the UK.
posted by krautland at 6:24 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

Based on 2005 data collected by the International Labour Organisation and using currency exchange rates of the time

As anyone living here is acutely aware, in 2005 the pound was worth about 25-30% more against the euro; adjusting for changes since 1 February 2005 puts the UK figures much closer to Italy's and behind Germany's:

UK £2,160
Portugal £774
Germany £2,275
Italy £1,746
France £1,318

But even that is only part of the picture. In 2005 the UK was in the middle of a housing boom and construction workers were in great demand. Now it isn't and they're not, so we would expect UK wages to be falling in average terms as people get laid off, have their hours reduced, etc. In the context of this story, 2005 figures don't tell us much at all; this may not even be a story about wages so much as conditions. The Guardian should know better.
posted by rory at 6:32 AM on February 1, 2009

it's flat-out racism, xenophobia and protectionism
Except it's not. Here's trash tabloid the Daily Star pushing that line, but the actual worker they quote says:

“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.

“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.”

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.
posted by Abiezer at 6:32 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

He tagged it for that already.

I fear you have misunderstood me jacalata. I meant the post was too country-specific for what it is (a news post). This story has limited interest for people outside of the country where it is taking place. Far higher profile stories take place around the world every day and I don't think anyone thinks they should all be posted here. The recent strikes in France were far larger, for example. Please retract your imputation.
posted by haines at 6:34 AM on February 1, 2009

Great Britain — the pioneer of modern social reforms. From an '05 issue of Gegenstandpunkt, a marxist quaterly.
posted by kolophon at 6:35 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

This story has limited interest for people outside of the country where it is taking place.

What an absurd thing to say. The international ramifications are about as broad and obvious as it's possible for a news story's international ramifications to be. Stop derailing the thread, haines. If you have a complaint, go to MetaTalk.
posted by mediareport at 6:46 AM on February 1, 2009 [13 favorites]

casual racism and xenophobia are way too accepted in the UK.

Accepted by whom? That implies that everyone in the country is a bigot. Racism and xenophobia are challenged here all the time, whenever they rear their heads, which is why they're a perpetual subject of debate in the press, at the Guardian end and the Mail end - if racists didn't feel their worldview was under attack they wouldn't go on about it in their media outlets of choice. If racism was "accepted" here in the absolute sense that the term implies, it wouldn't be up for discussion at all, it would just be the norm. Just because some Britons are racist doesn't mean it's a racist society.

There isn't a country in Europe that could claim to be free of racism and xenophobia; certainly none of those of a similar size.
posted by rory at 6:50 AM on February 1, 2009

The recent strikes in France also got discussed here, so I'm not sure what your point is.
/end derail.
posted by jacalata at 6:57 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't think this story merits posting. It's too country-specific, and the story is not yet majorly significant.

Indeed. We need to reject parochialism and post stories of universal significance.

Like . . whatever the wire services happen to be saying about President Obama in any fifteen minute period.

Now, there's something of universal significance.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:17 AM on February 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

This story has limited interest for people outside of the country where it is taking place.

What an absurd thing to say. The international ramifications are about as broad and obvious as it's possible for a news story's international ramifications to be.

Agreed. Over time it is looking more and more like this present global recession will have a significant deflationary impact on wages internationally. As more and more become unemployed, their eventual returns to productive employment are likely to be at reduced income. This will have far-reaching long term consequences.
posted by netbros at 7:20 AM on February 1, 2009

Accepted by whom? That implies that everyone in the country is a bigot.
no, it does not, it's a statement about the general perception of what is acceptable and what is not. I made it because as a white person who blended in easily I was repeatedly aghast at what british people would say to me about minorities and foreigners. a lot of this stuff wouldn't have been accepted in other places I have lived in.

There isn't a country in Europe that could claim to be free of racism and xenophobia; certainly none of those of a similar size.
correct but that's not disputed by at least me. what I am saying is that britain is much further to the right end of the spectrum present in the european union than they'd like to think.

Abiezer: of course the workers would say it's not racist or xenophobic but that doesn't make is so, even if the daily star prints it. they say it's about fairness when giving the work to other european union nationals IS fair. public works projects above a certain scale even have to be advertised for bids eu-wide. these guys are not being treated unfairly. not at all. they are playing the race card.

working for half what you made ten years ago.
nobody is forced to stick to their career. this isn't east-germany, where kids of college grads were prevented from attending universities themselves. if anyone doesn't like their occupation it's up to them to get the education for a better position. I have no empathy for someone who complains but has options.
posted by krautland at 7:20 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Quick question: is it actually confirmed that these workers are being paid less?

The article says that the costs would be lower. But presumably costs will be lower because the contractors already have recruited those workers; they don't have to advertise, recruit, and train a bunch of new workers. In which case, I really don't have a problem with this.
posted by Infinite Jest at 7:23 AM on February 1, 2009

I'm seeing claims that these workers are simply Irem's permanent staff. If so, Irem likely just doesn't need to hire locals. You can't have discriminatory hiring practices if your not hiring any new people. So this all falls well within the E.U.'s goals, i.e. rising tied lifts all boats, etc.

I'd say a better target for your ire is U.K. celebrities who happily fund slave labor in Dubai.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:24 AM on February 1, 2009

OK, I'm sorry. I just thought you weren't supposed to just post links to news stories. At least the one about the strikes in France is somewhat web-oriented. Anyway, I hereby retract my criticism of this post and heartily endorse all discussion thereof.
posted by haines at 7:26 AM on February 1, 2009

I made it because as a white person who blended in easily I was repeatedly aghast at what british people would say to me about minorities and foreigners. a lot of this stuff wouldn't have been accepted in other places I have lived in.

This has been my experience too. The number of times i've been told that the UK makes it easy for the wrong people to get in....Usually by people who think that asylum seekers are lazy because they won't take jobs (when legally they aren't allowed to).
posted by Infinite Jest at 7:28 AM on February 1, 2009

these guys are not being treated unfairly. not at all. they are playing the race card.
You really aren't seeing the wood for the trees or maybe you haven't spent much time on these sorts of job sites. Look at the contractual arrangements linked to some descriptions of above - it's a stitch-up. There was no chance for the skilled staff not just on hand, but actuallu on-site, to get this work.
This refinery isn't a public project AFAIK, but I think in fact the wages offered the Italian workers are going to be the same, the company is saving on the accommodation, which is a not insubstantial amount and is doing its bit to undermine labour agreements, which are to its benefit in the long term.
if anyone doesn't like their occupation it's up to them to get the education for a better position.
Of all the groups of workers to say this about, sub-contracting welders and what have you who build refineries would be about the last. They do go travel about for work and constantly update their skills. They have become "flexible" as the 80s mantra demanded and used to get slagged off by other trade unionists for that. This is not the dinosaur end of the working class.
I have no empathy
I can see that :p Also no long-term view of what a world where the economy has us blown hither and thither at the whim of capital means. Of course there are options; one of those is to fight for a more humane social set-up where you don't have to be treated like chattel to earn a living. We spent a hundred years and more sorting that out in Europe, then got side-swiped by the increased mobility of capital and now we have to start again; the good news will hopefully be that people all over the world benefit together, though chances are we'll all be sunk.
posted by Abiezer at 7:38 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Another example of this sort of imported slave labor is the H2 worker in the US.
posted by orme at 7:39 AM on February 1, 2009

To add, am reliably informed on some of the sites that have come out on strike in sympathy it is the case that the workers brought in are on worse pay and conditions, Staythorpe being the specific example I've seen.
posted by Abiezer at 7:45 AM on February 1, 2009

What's the name of Brown's party again?
posted by infinitewindow at 7:46 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

what I am saying is that britain is much further to the right end of the spectrum present in the european union than they'd like to think.

Many of us are well aware of this. Some of us even joke that the rest of the EU should kick us out to teach us a lesson, and not let us back in until we promise to behave. I personally try to counter some of the stuff I hear, but you know, we're kinda working against several daily newspapers and a couple of political parties, not to mention decades of crass bigotry. However, I do think a big change is coming, just give it time. Anyway, this isn't the story...



I'm seeing claims that these workers are simply Irem's permanent staff. If so, Irem likely just doesn't need to hire locals. You can't have discriminatory hiring practices if your not hiring any new people. So this all falls well within the E.U.'s goals, i.e. rising tied lifts all boats, etc.

I understand that, but I think that's part of the problem the workers have with this. The people who awarded the contract to this company did so despite knowing that no local labour would have been hired. I can't strictly blame Irem because they're only doing what they said they would, but the idea that no stipulation was made to even open up some of those jobs locally really galls. It's like the owners of the oil refinery think it sits in a desert, with no responsibilities to anybody. Traffic, pollution, even the threat of explosion, are all costs borne by the public, and yet they're being shut out from some of the benefits.
posted by Sova at 7:50 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

As others noted above, EU citizens can automatically work in any EU country; however there are exceptions for citizens of the 12 newest members (Central European countries mostly): older members can opt-in to allow citizens of the 12 new countries to work freely within their borders (although there is a max time-limit for the opt-in, I believe 3 years). The point is though that the UK was one of the few older members that allowed immediate free access to its labor market, and it did so to attract cheap(er) labor to fuel its own growth. Now that the tables have turned and the pound has crashed, it's a bit hypocritical to wanna put hurdles back up. What's good for the goose is good for the gander and all that...
posted by costas at 8:28 AM on February 1, 2009

Abiezer: please refrain from making assumptions about my experiences. you do not know me.

There was no chance for the skilled staff not just on hand, but actuallu on-site, to get this work.
well, duh! the company won the contract and their employer lost it. there is no problem with them getting legal, skilled workers from the next town or country. none at all. this happens the other way around as well, ya know.

This is not the dinosaur end of the working class.
your argument is that they cannot out-skill the other skilled workers in their field of profession. my argument is that okay, if you cannot get ahead in your chosen field then you have to bite the bullet and accept that it's either going to be a price war or a different career for you. it sucks to be in that position but it's a possibility that is more likely to pay the rent than stomping your feet on the ground and yelling 'thems peoples from the other side of the channel.'

decades of crass bigotry. However, I do think a big change is coming, just give it time. Anyway, this isn't the story...
I'm hoping you're right and I'm willing to get kicked out of a few more cabs for talking back at racist drivers.

these upset workers fail to realize that we all are foreigners almost everywhere.
posted by krautland at 8:49 AM on February 1, 2009

please refrain from making assumptions about my experiences. you do not know me.
Fair dos, if you stop making assumptions about broad swathes of the British working class, who you apparently don't know either. Nobody's saying this is a bunch of choirboys who have never had an unclean thought, but neither are they a bunch of knuckle-draggers and writing them off as such gets no-one anywhere, in fact pushes people who might go one way or the other into the arms of the worst type of politics. Also, you still don't seem to understand the point about the way the sub-contracting was worked, which is why I wondered if you'd ever worked on this kind of site - the grievance is about a specific employment practice that is becoming more standard and excludes local workers. See above passim.
you have to bite the bullet and accept that it's either going to be a price war or a different career for you.
Or you do your best as organised labour to change the rules of the game. That's politics, ours seem to differ, yours are rubbish and not much use to the vast majority of people. Not everyone just capitulates to every whim of the bosses. Good job too or we'd not have made the few gains we have since Victorian times.
posted by Abiezer at 9:07 AM on February 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

krautland: if we stop making assumptions about your experiences, will you promise to stop making assumptions about the motivation of the strikers?

They can want an unfair hiring/contracting process to stop without being dyed-in-the-wool racists.
posted by calico at 9:09 AM on February 1, 2009

I'm hoping you're right and I'm willing to get kicked out of a few more cabs for talking back at racist drivers.

You're basing your opinions of Britain on what cab drivers say? Mystery solved.
posted by I_pity_the_fool at 9:31 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

calico: Do you have any evidence that the hiring and contracting process was unfair? By all accounts, IREM won its contract fairly. They brought in their existing workforce, which happens to be dominated by workers from the countries they are most active, that is, Italy and Portugal. There's no evidence whatsoever that IREM discriminates against Brits in their hiring, they just aren't hiring anybody for the time being. In short, this whole brouhaha is about British unions trying to protect their members against competition by stoking the ugliest forms of xenophobia. There's no excuse for it. It's also an incredibly stupid and self-defeating move at a time when the pound is at an all-time low, making British contractors very competitive for work in the eurozone, and construction work rather more likely in the eurozone than in a badly crisis-stricken UK.

Back in the nineties, British contractors, with British workforces, were active all over the Continent. There was even a British TV series about these migrant workers: "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet".
posted by Skeptic at 9:34 AM on February 1, 2009

Skeptic, again if you read what workers on strike say there's plenty fully aware of all that. This is off that striker's forum I linked above:

"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.
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."

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.
posted by Abiezer at 9:56 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Because if no one is losing work or will lose work over this, it certainly does smack of nationalist alarmism.

As an additional wrinkle, the project in question is being funded in part by the taxpayer.

So the British taxpayer is pumping stimulus money into... California and Italy. This is probably not the desired outcome.

I'm hoping you're right and I'm willing to get kicked out of a few more cabs for talking back at racist drivers.

Perhaps you could stop making generalisations about English people based on your eperiences. That sounds almost... racist.

Or perhaps you could find some German Turks looking for someone to fight the anti-racist fight on their behalf.

Back in the nineties, British contractors, with British workforces, were active all over the Continent. There was even a British TV series about these migrant workers: "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet".

Earlier than that - the 80s; I remember it from when I was living there. So yes, there is an irony that British workers have been prepared to take advantage of the same freedom in the past. Of course, that was at a time with Britain - more specifically the north of England - was being run down at a time when much of th rest of Europe was doing well, so it may not have aroused quite the same passions in the places they were visiting.
posted by rodgerd at 10:00 AM on February 1, 2009

Abiezer, that post doesn't say anything about the hiring procedures. It complains about the tendering procedures:

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.

The government shouldn't allow foreign companies to undercut domestic tenderers? How, exactly? Do you realise that if every country follows suit, the whole idea of having a single European market will break down, much to the detriment of everybody?
posted by Skeptic at 10:06 AM on February 1, 2009

Skeptic - Yeah, I know, I quoted it mainly because he mentions the working abroad - point being, plenty of the workers understand they've taken advantage of labour mobility in the past. The hiring issue comes where IREM (Italian contractor) and the others have their ready-formed work gangs - by sub-contracting out to them it means there's no point in the process where the UK workers can reasonably have a chance to get hired.
Not heard it said about IREM, but certainly on the other sites coming out in sympathy it's been specifically stated that UK workers wouldn't be hired, because they're leveraging their right under EU rules to contract workers at Portuguese (in the one case) standards and rates, not UK ones, if Portugal is the country they're "technically" employed in.
And as is usually the case with strikes, this will have been the final straw in a death-of-thousand-cuts to working standards. I'll not pretend to know all the ins and outs of this deal or this industry, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred when workers come out spontaneously like this it won't be over nothing - particularly in these insecure times.
posted by Abiezer at 10:18 AM on February 1, 2009

Abiezer Frankly, complaints about foreign workers undercutting working standards, coming from the country which has fought with claw and tooth against the European Social Charter, are hardly going to meet much sympathy...Where were the British unions then?
posted by Skeptic at 10:22 AM on February 1, 2009

So you want to frame it in nationalist terms yourself? Or hold this particular group of workers responsible for past policies they may or may not have had anything to do with? That's all too abstract. People tend to learn these lessons in struggles like these. I mind back in the miner's strike the comments on how chauvinist a lot of the strikers were; the role women played in the strike changed a lot of that. This is how things move forward - if we wait for the perfect victims with the perfect track record we'll wait forever. Life's a messy old business; you get stuck in for what's right when and where you can.
posted by Abiezer at 10:28 AM on February 1, 2009

Well, here's the union's press release. I don't read it as a massively xenophobic call to kick out foreigners. If we are to point fingers I'd start with Gordon Brown, who made his speech about British jobs for British workers when he knows that any discrimination in favour of UK citizens is currently unlawful. Now that's irresponsible.

I cannot pretend that I know all the answers here. I think that our future has to lie with Europe, and I'm glad that we are a part of the EU.

But I do think that while a contracting process may be fair to the parties to the contract and to its competitors it may still be unfair to others who have an interest in the result. Workers in the area have a claim to a living wage, and people that live near the power station may have a long-term interest that expertise on its construction and maintenance is kept within the area.

I do remember Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. I don't think that a future where we all have to travel most of the way across a continent to find work should be what we're all working towards. It may be that that my support of the EU and my belief that firms with too much power in the labour market should not dictate the standard of living for a region are contradictory at the moment, but I do hope that we find a way to sort it out.
posted by calico at 10:30 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Abiezer, the problem is that what these workers are apparently campaigning is still not a level playing field, and EU wide working standards. It's preventing foreign contractors/workers from getting "British jobs". They may be quite upright in avoiding association with the BNP, the trouble is that, deep down, they are thinking in the same tribal terms.

With respect to British stimulus money, I must also note that one of the major sympathy strikes was in the Longannet power station. Coincidentally, Longannet was among the British sites which were allocated 250 million euros by the EU for carbon capture and storage just the day before!
posted by Skeptic at 10:35 AM on February 1, 2009

calico As a matter of fact, I work abroad, and quite happily too: there would be little use for my specific skillset in my own country. By "local jobs for local people", I'd be miserable working (if I was lucky) an unloved job in Spain, and some Belgian would (if he was lucky) be equally miserable in my current job in Belgium. Is that what you aim for?
posted by Skeptic at 10:38 AM on February 1, 2009

if you stop making assumptions about broad swathes of the British working class
which one bothers you? that I reported my experiences gained from living in the UK or that I wrote that these workers did not suffer an injustice?

the grievance is about a specific employment practice that is becoming more standard and excludes local workers
here is what I understand very clearly: EU-worker one lost against EU-worker two and now EU-worker one is crying foul play in spite of EU-worker two being subject to the exact same laws and regulations. EU-worker one had no outset disadvantage. local workers are not excluded from such contracts but are permitted to not get them. what's up with your sense of entitlement based on what village someone resides in? this isn't the middle ages.

Or you do your best as organised labour to change the rules of the game
yeah, as I said: british leyland.

yours are rubbish>
that's the fifth ad-hominem in the same reply. good effort.

and not much use to the vast majority of people.
that's not true. you just speculated the 'vast majority' part. the second-education market in the UK is massive. people need to learn all the time. the days in which you learned a trade at fourteen and rode that horse until you retired with a pension are over. as are the days of a sixty year-old getting hip replacement surgery on the NHS. ("not worth it for a few more years" or whatever they like to say now.)

Not everyone just capitulates to every whim of the bosses.
no, they prefer capitulating and blaming 'the man' when the world has changed around them. you're like a kid who doesn't want to accept that his sandcastle doesn't stand a chance against the flood unless he finally gets up and relocates further up the beach. "it's always been low tide! let's protest and change the system!" yeah, right.

You're basing your opinions of Britain on what cab drivers say? Mystery solved.
no, but apparently they should be excluded and not be allowed to play any part. hey, what kinds of people should I look to in your opinion? anyone worth more than a lowly cabbie?

did I call those guys racist yet? ah well, one more time: they're racist.
posted by krautland at 10:39 AM on February 1, 2009

And I do agree with you about Gordon Brown. That was massively irresponsible (just as his past resistance against the European Social Charter and the Working Time Directive).
posted by Skeptic at 10:39 AM on February 1, 2009

Ah get on, krautland - calling your politics rubbish isn't an ad hominem, it's based on what I've inferred of them from what you said. You think mine are infantile, and there we are. I'm sure you're a lovely person away from the voting booth! I'd best leave this for a bit or it'll descend even further into me against the world.
posted by Abiezer at 10:46 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Interesting that the idea that we should all be happy to travel across continents to find work pretty much destroys any concept of community.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:51 AM on February 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

And calico, reading that press release, I note a few things:

Unite sought assurances that Alstom would provide a level playing field for UK workers during the process for sub-contracting. The union pressed Alstom to include a clause in the tendering process so that any sub contractor would endeavour to use UK or local labour.

Rather contradictory, those two sentences. In what sort of "level playing field" do locals get preferential treatment?

“Alstom have the power to insist that the sub-contractors end this scandalous situation. UK workers must be given a fair chance to get a cut of the action to build a new generation of UK power stations.”

How, by firing their long-standing foreign employees to hire locals in their place? Some solidarity!
posted by Skeptic at 10:52 AM on February 1, 2009

Skeptic Okay, while we're agreeing I'll agree about the Social Charter and the WTD. I don't know - it seems like UK governments try to steer a course between the tabloids and the CBI and keep no one happy.

I'm glad, of course, that you're happy and fulfilled in your career. I've worked abroad myself, and was brought up abroad as the result of my father's decision to work outside the UK. So I'm more than sympathetic to working in a country other than the one of your birth. If that's what you want to do, great, and if I'd trained as an Alpine Guide I'd understand that the employment opportunities were thin in this country. All I'm saying is that it seems like a shame to be forced into it as a result of market forces. Sometimes people like staying where they are - for family, because their biggest investment is their house, or whatever - and that's fine too.
posted by calico at 11:01 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I just got back from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with a pipefitter from Grimsby (which I understand is near Lincolnshire) and he told me many tales about the indignities they suffer that were appalling. He also made a point of saying that he did not blame the foreign workers because they are just trying to put food on the table for their families and that he located the unfairness of the situation in the government and corporate policies. I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of this issue, but I did feel quite sorry for the guy.
posted by Falconetti at 11:03 AM on February 1, 2009

Pope Guilty: Interesting that the idea that we should all be happy to travel across continents to find work pretty much destroys any concept of community.

That's the whole point: divide and conquer. People without community are pretty much at the whim of the bosses. Free trade isn't free, it's just circumventing everything we've worked for over the past two hundred years.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:16 AM on February 1, 2009 [6 favorites]

I just got back from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with a pipefitter from Grimsby

This is the most interesting statement I have read in a long, long time.
posted by Lord_Pall at 11:26 AM on February 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

FYI, Total is not a US companybut instead a French company (Total SA).
posted by evening at 11:38 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is not the first time I've encountered thoughts along the lines of "compete on price (wages)." Naive as I might be, when and where do the laws, rules, loopholes stop--at the above-described situations in MENA?
posted by ambient2 at 12:49 PM on February 1, 2009

calico: Yes, people usually prefer to stay close to their homes. The decision of moving to work abroad is never an easy one. But then, that's also why it will also rarely be in the interest of the employers to move people around. You'll find out that, globalisation notwithstanding, a vast majority of the workforce anywhere (apart from a few odd outliers like Dubai) is formed by locals. I'm certain that even in the sites giving rise to this controversy, a large majority of the contractors and workers are locals. But in some cases, it may be in the mutual interest of employer and employee to move him to a different country. I don't think that it would be beneficial to put obstacles to that, certainly not within the EU. BTW, that's another thing that bothers me: how do you define "local"? If those workers were Scottish, rather than Italian, this controversy would be rather different wouldn't it? Or can you picture this happening in the US to Floridans working in Oregon? (a much longer distance).
posted by Skeptic at 12:58 PM on February 1, 2009

like a kid who doesn't want to accept that his sandcastle doesn't stand a chance against the flood unless he finally gets up and relocates further up the beach. "it's always been low tide! let's protest and change the system!"

There is a difference between the tide and politics. Characterising this as "kids" and "sandcastles" is just patronising.

EU-worker one lost against EU-worker two and now EU-worker one is crying foul play in spite of EU-worker two being subject to the exact same laws and regulations.

Isn't that the nub of it? My guess is that the strikers and their mates don't think of themselves as "EU workers", neither do they accept the principles that you seem to think are axiomatic.

Among the many problems with totally "free" labour markets is that workers have ties to their community that capital doesn't have; workers have lead times for re-education (and sunk-cost regrets about their existing profession) that capital doesn't have.

This is why the workers here frame this as a "fairness" issue even though you argue that the situation is fair. It is not about fairness between EU worker one and EU worker two, it is about fairness between labour and capital.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:03 PM on February 1, 2009

Just seen this statement from a member of the strike committee: What's really behind the Lindsey Oil Refinery strike
posted by Abiezer at 1:40 PM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I recognise those floating barges used to house the foreign workers, they are prison ships.
posted by doobiedoo at 2:36 PM on February 1, 2009

I think the issue is not primarily the EU freedom of movement/establishment (meaning, you can work in any country) - it's that Brits are being sacked so that already-employed Italians can come in on a subcontract for less money. As others have said, banning Britons, Italians or any flavour of EU citizen from applying for jobs would be molto illegal anywhere in the Union.

AIUI, there are actually EU rules that are meant to prevent this sort of subcontract wheeze from happening - a law called the Placed Workers Directive, which requires terms and conditions to be the same as local workers if they are being directly replaced - but recent interpretations of this from the European Court of Justice (the EU's version of the Supreme Court) have knocked some rather large holes in those rules, which companies like IREM are now working out how to exploit.

The Government are now running around saying that the law needs to be strengthened again, as you might expect.

It's ironic that a Labour government that has parrotted the bankers' demands in Brussels for years, always arguing against regulation and against greater EU cohesion, is now blaming the EU for terribly lax regulation that doesn't respect workers' rights. Just in time for the even more Eurosceptic and worker-hostile Conservatives to win the next election.
posted by athenian at 2:44 PM on February 1, 2009

i_am_joe's_spleen: it is about fairness between labour and capital.
I understand your point and agree with everything you said, yet their protest is against other workers. your interpretation means they should rail against the (capitalistic) system. very seldomly have we ever had an actually fairness between labor and capital. I have few hopes of that changing under any system but I'm for people trying to shape this for a better life for all of us. what I am against is this 'british first' rhetoric they are spouting.

that Brits are being sacked so that already-employed Italians can come in on a subcontract for less money.
couple mistakes - you don't know if the other workers make less or if the company decided to keep less in profit or if they have some other lower cost that allowed them to submit a lower bid. you are also ignoring that these other workers might very well have been sacked had the brits won this contract. are you suggesting that one national losing a job over another is better?
posted by krautland at 2:52 PM on February 1, 2009

>Accepted by whom? That implies that everyone in the country is a bigot.
no, it does not, it's a statement about the general perception of what is acceptable and what is not.

Saying that racist speech is generally considered acceptable either implies that British people in general have no problem with it because they're racist, or it tells us nothing about actual levels of racism in Britain. The presence of racist loudmouths in Britain means that Britain is a country that has racists and tolerates loudmouths. Some countries don't tolerate loudmouths, but they still have racists.

as a white person who blended in easily I was repeatedly aghast at what british people would say to me about minorities and foreigners. a lot of this stuff wouldn't have been accepted in other places I have lived in.

I'm also a white person who blends in easily enough here. I've heard a few loudmouths in my time in the UK, so could probably equally say that I've been "repeatedly aghast" at random comments about minorities and foreigners uttered in Britain in my presence. But I've encountered many, many more perfectly reasonable people here. Fixating on the loudmouths is an invitation to confirmation bias. "These British racists are so... so racist!"

The famous English reserve - which has its share elsewhere in Britain too - doesn't just stop at embarrassment over serving vicars the wrong blend of tea. A lot of casual racist speech doesn't get denounced on the spot because it isn't worth the risk of unpleasantness or even violence, keeping in mind what types of people tend to go around spouting racism to anyone in earshot. That doesn't mean that everyone in earshot agrees with it.
posted by rory at 2:56 PM on February 1, 2009

I think the issue is not primarily the EU freedom of movement/establishment (meaning, you can work in any country) - it's that Brits are being sacked so that already-employed Italians can come in on a subcontract for less money.

Hang on, as I understand it, no-one's being sacked, these are new jobs. The strikers are complaining that they haven't had the opportunity to apply for them - which is slightly different.
posted by Infinite Jest at 3:28 PM on February 1, 2009

I have said it before, and I will say it again: you cannot have freedom until human beings are accorded exactly the same mobility as capital.
posted by aramaic at 4:47 PM on February 1, 2009

I have said it before, and I will say it again: you cannot have freedom until human beings are accorded exactly the same mobility as capital.

But you can't accord human beings the same mobility. Social ties to a location operate much more strongly on you than they do on your money, even without any regulatory barriers at all. Hence the need for other mechanisms than pure market ones.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:12 PM on February 1, 2009

^ well you can, but over time you will end up with an Alpha class and then Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon classes to serve them.

This works best for the Alphas, which is all that matters to them. Gamma, Delta, And Epsilons always have somebody else to replace them, so have no power.

This is what happened in the major 19th century cities. The US countryside was more complex since there was still immense natural wealth available for the taking via homesteading and infill colonization, but as the frontier filled in speculators rose to the fore.

Casey Serin would have felt right at home with the land speculators of the late 19th century -- cf. what happened in Los Angeles for example.

The national income -- and degree of capital goods we employ to make our economy more efficient -- is such the basics of life (food, shelter, health care, transportation, education, transportation) are really not that expensive (in terms of resource consumption) in the scheme of things.

The problem is the rentiers among us collecting more than their "fair share", requiring more work from the actually productive. Rentierism can be found from scarce FCC spectrum allocations (resulting in $100/mo phone bills, WTF), Section 8 landlordism, medical doctors guilds limiting competition, etc.

The Old Labour government than came in in 1945 thought they had the answers, and even the Conservatives of the day were a lot more "lefty" than our Democratic overlords here in the states dare to be now. The social upheavals and various policy failures of the 1960s has a lot to do with that.
posted by troy at 7:04 PM on February 1, 2009

I found the 4th & 8th paragraph of Abiezer link very clarifying :

"the Stewards explained that Shaws had lost a third of the job to IREM who would be employing their own core Portuguese and Italian workforce numbering 200-300."

So IREM is using their own existing employees, meaning no new jobs. So the workers are protesting nothing at Lindsey Oil Refinery.

"a National Shop Stewards Forum for the construction Industry held a meeting in London to discuss Staythorpe Power Station where the company Alstom were refusing to hire British labour relying on non-union Polish and Spanish workers instead."

So Alstom may in-fact have discriminatory hiring practices at Staythorpe Power Station. If Alstom has broken any laws, they'll quite likely be prosecuted, especially given the recent press.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:51 PM on February 1, 2009

"I just thought you weren't supposed to just post links to news stories. At least the one about the strikes in France is somewhat web-oriented. Anyway, I hereby retract my criticism of this post and heartily endorse all discussion thereof."

Don't sweat it too much. A link to the announcement that a sandwich shop is closing can not only stay up but garner 200+ comments. It the nature of the beast around here.
posted by Mitheral at 9:26 PM on February 1, 2009

That's not how I read the issues at Lindsey, jeffburges.
Seems like one subcontractor, Shaws, lost out in bidding to another, IREM. Shaws had already told at least some of its workforce they'd be redundant by February; these workers had no doubt hoped to pick up on work from the new contracts awarded by the refinery, but found that the deal had been done over their heads and there would be no chance of them even applying to work for the new contractor. That's the nub of their grievance - one job is coming to an end; new work at the same site that they're qualified for and will expect the standard rate for is going elsewhere without them even having a chance of getting it - what I said about the situation this multiple layers of sub-contracting creates.
Now, if the wage rates are going to be the same as per national agreements for IREM workers as they were for Shaws', why would IREM want to go to the trouble of bringing men in all the way from Italy? Well, it's their own crew who they no doubt have confidence in their dealings with is one, but also having the workforce all housed in the one place saves them enormously on accommodation and everything is more controlled and centralised and this is probably why they could bid cheaper (though to speculate, from past experience I'd be not in the slightest surprised thatmore shenanigans may come to light in the bidding process later). From the refinery's point of view, they've driven a wedge into the workforce and created two competing groups of workers who can be set against each other.
It may all sound a bit abstract put like that, but at the sharp end it's you looking at being out of a job with no prospects despite there being work to do and having the skills to do it, and not because you're pricing yourself out of it either.
I've seen various things the far right are putting out in the hopes of fanning the nationalist aspects of this and of course that's a super-easy case to make because in the nature of such discourse it's simple and easy - "Johnny foreigner nicking our jobs." Now, I don't for a minute think most workers do or will take that simplistic view (interviews I've seen support that take), as their own experience in the industry will tell them it's about the way the contracts have been awarded, which is what most people have said, but it could certainly appeal to some as a straight-forward explanation of where the unfairness of this situation arises. That's one of the reasons I think this is the very worst time to start pontificating to people looking at unemployment about how they should suck it up and get with the 21st post-community, post-social-impact need to be pawns in international money games. That's as crude and offensive as the nationalist angle imo.
posted by Abiezer at 9:43 PM on February 1, 2009

Another point I saw raised elsewhere the obvious point that when big, polluting and nuisance-creating projects like this refinery are being sited, they're sold to the local community as bringing jobs to the area, boosting the economy and so forth, that implies a certain social compact which hiring practices like this are seen to break.
The MP I quoted above (getting the nationality of Total wrong), John Cruddas, writes on the strike again in today's left-leaning tabloid the Mirror:

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...

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...

Bad is that the press in Italy and Spain are reporting these as anti-foreigner strikes so that's ratcheting up the tensions too.
posted by Abiezer at 12:15 AM on February 2, 2009

rory: you are right, there are many fine people in the UK as well. I didn't negate that. what I did attempt to express was that my subjective impression was that (a) more people openly voice racist and xenophobic opinions than in the other western countries I have lived in and that (b) said musings more often seem to go unchallenged.

it isn't worth the risk of unpleasantness or even violence, keeping in mind what types of people tend to go around spouting racism to anyone in earshot. That doesn't mean that everyone in earshot agrees with it.
we couldn't disagree more here. 'not worth' it? really? if this of all topics is not worth a dissent then what is? further - making no statement is a statement in itself. it's perhaps not the same as outright agreeing but it sends that message. it also sends the message that such banter is tolerated and accepted, that it is okay.

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.
please explain why this is a problem to you. everything outlined seems perfectly legal to me as it conforms with not just EU law but also the spirit thereof. this could have happened exactly the other way around as well. would you be just as outraged if these portuguese workers happened to be welsh? if they lived on the other side of town? what makes this any different? does it end at fifty miles commute or two hundred?

Bad is that the press in Italy and Spain are reporting these as anti-foreigner strikes so that's ratcheting up the tensions too.

yes, you are right, that is bad. it is however also correctly reported.
posted by krautland at 6:10 AM on February 2, 2009

that is bad. it is however also correctly reported.
krautland, Channel 4 news just showed a clip of the pickets telling a BNP agitator to fuck off - people aren't the caricatures you seem to want to insist they are. If you think people are stood outside the gates in the snow at six in the morning mainly because they're racists, you're nuts. It comes across as if you're willing these people to be more racist than they are.
please explain why this is a problem to you. everything outlined seems perfectly legal to me
It's a problem because high-handed management is shafting the workforce for a bit of penny-pinching. Talking to friends online from round that way, there's been nothing in Immingham and surrounds since the fishing industry collapsed; this refinery was supposed to regenerate the area and these are some of the few jobs available.
Yes, people would have been outraged if this had been a group of Welsh workers. For the umpteenth time, it's about the way the contracting process has been set up to preclude the local workforce from even the chance of applying for the work.
I couldn't give a stuff if the corporate lawyers have managed to make this look legitimate myself. As has been pointed out above, EU law has been circumvented on numerous occasions and in various ways to facilitate a race to the bottom in wages and conditions, largely by just the sort of circuitous sub-contracting deals we're seeing here.
posted by Abiezer at 6:45 AM on February 2, 2009

>it isn't worth the risk of unpleasantness or even violence, keeping in mind what types of people tend to go around spouting racism to anyone in earshot. That doesn't mean that everyone in earshot agrees with it.
we couldn't disagree more here. 'not worth' it? really? if this of all topics is not worth a dissent then what is?

I wasn't saying that I would think it wasn't worth it. I was talking about the "English reserve" mindset that would lead people to stay quiet in situations where others might not. And it would depend very much on the situation; it's different if it's someone you know. In brief encounters with random strangers, the calculation will often be that it isn't worth getting into an argument with someone who (a) isn't going to change their mind because of what some stranger says, and (b) might be physically dangerous. I wouldn't underestimate the latter, either. There's been a moral panic about knife crime here lately, which says as much about people's fears as about actual statistical risk. Reserve is one way of coping with such fears.

further - making no statement is a statement in itself. it's perhaps not the same as outright agreeing but it sends that message. it also sends the message that such banter is tolerated and accepted, that it is okay.

This is where we disagree. You're inferring that message on the basis of your own cultural expectations; it's not necessarily the message intended. I would interpret silence as embarrassment, which would signify disagreement -- that would be the message sent to me as an observer in such a situation. Signs of agreement would be smiles and nods and words of approval, not silence.
posted by rory at 8:17 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm also wondering what situations you would consider to be evidence of general silent approval of racist loudmouths. Your encounters with taxi-drivers were presumably one-on-one, so all they tell us is that you've encountered some racist taxi-drivers in your time, not what the populace at large thinks of them (although the fact that the racist taxi-driver is an ugly stereotype rather than an admiring one gives you a clue). People saying outrageous things at a bus-stop or on a tube platform falls squarely into "keep quiet, stare into space, move away if necessary" territory. People saying something offensive in the workplace one might expect to draw a reaction, but how would you know what reaction unless you'd been a witness yourself -- and you've already said that you react in those situations, which changes the dynamic. Have people gone so far as to gang up with the racist loudmouths against you? Then you could reasonably call those people racists too; but that isn't a situation of silent approval.

We read ridiculous statements online every day, often on threads with comments boxes at the end, where if we like we could challenge them. But often we don't, because even the most prolific commenter couldn't keep up with the volume of craziness generated by millions of diverse human beings. Does that make us complicit in the craziness of the comments we let slide?
posted by rory at 8:40 AM on February 2, 2009

I don't buy your story Abiezer, you talk lots, but you give no evidence.

The very fact that Shaws lost the bid to IREM absolves Total of any wrong doing. Indeed, Total was likely forced to accept E.U. wide bids by law. So even if Total promised local jobs, they obviously can't keep that promise without violating E.U. laws.

The fact that these are IREM's core workforce likewise absolves IREM. I mean, obviously IREM will use it's own people if humanly possible, duh! How could IREM even bid competently without using their own workers?

For example, I gather that IREM is paying national rate plus providing accommodations, which I doubt is deducted from pay, while Shaws would pay only national rate, so IREM's workers are likely costing more. If so, then IREM must either have more confidence in their workforce or else face work shortages from the recession at home.

Indeed, the most likely scenario is simply that IREM underbid Shaws because they faced recession, layoffs, etc. at home. IREM may even be taking a risk here to protect it's own workforce.

Can you actually provide any evidence for all your sound & fury?
posted by jeffburdges at 10:48 AM on February 2, 2009

The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus, the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
posted by chunking express at 1:30 PM on February 2, 2009

I wonder if the IREM thought they'd skim some profit off of exchange rates at the time they tendered for the contract? If the job was paid in pounds, but the workers were paid an agreed wage in Euros, they'd be able to get some additional profit from the exchange differences whilst keeping in line with any kind of directive or policy that required subs to pay all workers "equally".

There may no longer be restrictions in Italy for Italian companies to hire Italians first, but the laws are pretty restrictive about firing or laying off workers. Maybe the company had these workers on the payroll and it was cheaper to have them come live in a floating hotel, work for pounds and be paid in Euros? Not that it excuses their decision to import this labour, mind... nor does it excuse the government's own toothless actions/reactions to this crisis. It might explain the logic, though, behind the company claiming that the workers were paid the same (vs claims they are cheaper).

Krautland: I have heard mindbogglingly bigoted things off of people in this country, usually from people who know my husband is English and somehow assume (or don't register) that I am not. You don't have to tolerate it, but by the same token, if you're getting into a fight with someone, you're kind of going about things the wrong way. Granted, as a woman, not many men would dare take a swing at me or pitch me out of their taxi. But even so, I'd point out that someone above mentioned that silence here indicates disapproval here, not assent. Besides, it is never the gobby Five Live-listenting minicab driver you have to worry about as a virulent racist. It's the quiet ones who seethe at you stealing the very air of this green and pleasant land that you need to make sure don't poison your coffee.

Saw that Sellafield joined in the strikes. Considering that these are illegal strikes at the moment, and that these strikers are quite possibly going without pay to make this important point, show 'em some respect, won't you?

Metaxa: hope no one in Sheffs sees that post - you might have to move to Scab County (Nottinghamshire, for the non Yorkshire folk) with a post like that! ;)
posted by Grrlscout at 5:24 PM on February 2, 2009

Can you actually provide any evidence for all your sound & fury?
Heh. Sound and fury?
Quite apart from being confident the narrative will be a fair approximation of the usually drip-drip-drip way these things build up, my evidence rests in thousands of workers up and down the country walking off the job because they obviously feel aggrieved at unfairness in hiring practices and general precariousness (in sociological sense).
It's at a point whether it's neither here nor there whether IREM have abided by the letter of the law and if you can't see that, or why that doesn't matter, there's not a lot else I can do to explain it to you.
posted by Abiezer at 5:51 PM on February 2, 2009

Here's the list of demands passed by the mass meeting:

• No victimisation of workers taking solidarity action.
• All workers in UK to be covered by NAECI Agreement.
• Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available.
• Government and employer investment in proper training / apprenticeships for new generation of construction workers - fight for a future for young people.
• All Immigrant labour to be unionised.
• Trade Union assistance for immigrant workers - including interpreters - and access to Trade Union advice - to promote active integrated Trade Union Members.
• Build links with construction trade unions on the continent.
Mass meeting? Nuremberg rally more like! Personally I'd have phrased it "migrant" rather than "immigrant" but can't see much else to object to.

posted by Abiezer at 6:11 PM on February 2, 2009

Another snippet from my morning reading; Michael Meacher MP:

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.

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.

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.
posted by Abiezer at 8:03 PM on February 2, 2009

Migrant workers join solidarity strike.
posted by Abiezer at 5:07 PM on February 3, 2009

It's all in the edit "Some of the BBC's reports about the recent strike action have a disturbing undertone: working-class people are racist" -- comparison of clips in question
posted by Abiezer at 5:45 PM on February 3, 2009

krautland, Channel 4 news just showed a clip of the pickets telling a BNP agitator to fuck off
all the (mostly but not exclusively german) newspapers I have read in the last two days have had pictures of angry men with signs like "british workers first" and phrases like "xenophobia in britain" in the first paragraphs of their stories. if they're really protesting anything else but "foreigners" taking their jobs they're doing a helluva job hiding it.

It's a problem because high-handed management is shafting the workforce for a bit of penny-pinching.
yes, everyone hates people who don't want to pay more than they have to because it's always been that way. especially if those people look, sound or seem anything like "the man."

EU law has been circumvented on numerous occasions (...) a race to the bottom in wages and conditions, largely by just the sort of circuitous sub-contracting deals we're seeing here.
again: nothing illegal here. nothing immoral here. you offer a service, I offer a service. no material difference distinguishes you from me. why should anyone hire me if I want more money for the same service than you? the whole idea of a combined economic area is that prices even out. this highest paid (and therefore richest) lose out, the lowest paid (and therefore poorest) win. I see that as a force for good.

I was talking about the "English reserve" mindset that would lead people to stay quiet in situations where others might not.
'english reserve' strikes me as less of an issue than it used to be. then again, what do I know, I just rode the bus while living there. I may have been subjected to only an unrepresentative part of the populus.

This is where we disagree. You're inferring that message on the basis of your own cultural expectations; it's not necessarily the message intended. I would interpret silence as embarrassment,
I understand your point completely but I was thinking about what the person spouting those comments would take away from your silence. I doubt most would get that you are embarrassed for their poppycock. few people are that perceptive to begin with. it's much more likely that as long as they go unchallenged they feel they're right and nobody is disagreeing.

the fact that the racist taxi-driver is an ugly stereotype rather than an admiring one gives you a clue
I realize the taxi driver was an ill-chosen example that made for a welcome distraction but it still was just one of many different people I could have named. before you ask: yes, I have met non-racist taxi drivers. a particularly nice one was my neighbor.

Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available.
what do they mean by "nominating rights"?

All Immigrant labour to be unionised.
yeah, that's just bullshit. smart of them to try though.
posted by krautland at 9:44 AM on February 4, 2009

Brussels signals rethink on labour rules

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.

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.

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.
posted by Abiezer at 5:21 AM on February 5, 2009

The target of this campaign of strikes is now obvious

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...

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"...

posted by Abiezer at 6:11 AM on February 5, 2009