FRESH WILDCAT strikes were held today in the row over foreign workers as Labour MPs lined up to congratulate unions for exposing the “exploitation” of British employees.
Crucial talks aimed at resolving the dispute continued but they failed to halt a series of walkouts at power stations and other sites across the UK.
Hundreds of strikers held another protest at the Lindsey oil refinery in North Lincolnshire, where the dispute flared after a contract was awarded to an Italian firm which hired its own workforce from Italy and Portugal.
Unofficial strike action at the plant has sparked copycat protests, with about 500 workers at Shell’s Stanlow oil refinery in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and 250 at Hartlepool engineering company Heerema joining the national protest today.
Heerema employee Steve Sanderson, who has worked at the firm for seven months, said: “A lot of the lads here don’t have permanent jobs and there is a lot of uncertainty around.” Cheshire police said they had a number of officers at Fiddlers Ferry power station in Widnes, Cheshire, as “a precautionary measure” after more than 200 employees walked out for another day.
Labour MP John Mann (Bassetlaw) tabled a Commons early-day motion “deploring” the use of foreign workers at the Lindsey refinery, and congratulating unions for “exposing this exploitation and the absence of equal opportunities to apply for all jobs”. The MP said large capital projects, including new power stations, should be built by “companies employing primarily British labour on decent pay and conditions”.
The Scottish National Party’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, requested the Commons European Scrutiny Committee examine the legislation covering free movement of labour.
Derek Simpson, joint leader of the Unite union, said the strikes were not about “race or immigration”. He told ultra-right-wing groups their “politics of hate” was not welcome on construction sites across the UK. “The unofficial action taking place across the UK is not about race or immigration – it’s about class. It’s about employers who exploit workers regardless of their nationality by undercutting their hard-won pay and conditions.”
The oil firm has urged workers to end the unofficial action at the refinery in North Killingholme as soon as possible, stressing that it had never discriminated against British companies or British workers.