Strikes repel attacks on jobs and conditions Shades of the miners' strike - mass protests, car park meetings, loud hailers that don't work. Not so much flying pickets as flying texts and emails leading to spontaneous unofficial walkouts and 'illegal' strike action. The anti-trade union laws have been brushed aside without a thought.
Each day brings news of more power plants and construction sites walking out. There's a feeling of: "We must strike while the iron's hot. Enough is enough. If we don't win this we'll be signing on for the rest of our lives."
Out of the frenzy of activity comes improvisation and initiative. National trade union leaders who were secretly holed up in a four-star hotel were tracked down and forced to accept strike committee representation in any negotiations.
So far we can't make direct contact with the Italian workers that have been bussed in and accommodated on a barge in Grimsby dock, rumoured to be a prison ship. They are fenced in by security. The strikers need to reach these workers and leaflets have been produced in Italian.
But an Italian TV station did an interview with strike committee members which will go out in Italy and be seen by the Italian workers on the ship.
There's massive anger against the companies like Total and subcontractors Jacobs and IREM. There's anger against the EU and their directives and court rulings but mostly against Gordon "Thatcher" and "On yer bike" Mandelson.
There's a real sense of betrayal by Labour. The BNP have been bounced off from this site and not been back. Yes, there are one or two union jacks and Brown's promise of "British jobs for British workers" is reflected in some home-made hand bills. But nearly all the strikers will tell you it's not about the foreign workers, it's about the national agreement. It's about jobs, pay and conditions, about trade union strength and stopping this race to the bottom.
The Lindsey oil refinery strike committee issued a call on Monday 2 February to spread the strike into an all-out strike to force the government and employers to concede the demands.
In the first meeting with the strike committee, Total said there would be no negotiations until the strike was called off and the workers returned to work. 48 hours later, on 4 February, they capitulated.
They initially conceded that UK workers could have 60 (40 skilled, 20 unskilled) workers on the IREM contract.
In addition some other concessions were promised. Socialist Party member Keith Gibson recommended rejection of the company's proposals to a mass meeting on behalf of the strike committee. The meeting discussed them for half an hour and overwhelmingly rejected them as not enough.
The company then made an offer which means half the jobs will be filled by UK workers, parity with IREM's own workforce. They have also agreed that all the workers will be paid according to the national agreement. The unions will be able to see the details, so they can ensure that national agreements are being complied with.
No Italian workers will be laid off, only 100 of whom are in Lindsey as yet. All the Italian workers are a core workforce for IREM so will still be employed by them.
So, as The Socialist goes to press, the strikers could be on the verge of a significant victory. The new proposals will be recommended by the strike committee to a mass meeting on 5 February.
But the strike committee know this is only the beginning of the campaign nationally. There's a meeting of the national shop stewards forum on 9 February to plan where to go from here. There's already a big demand for at least a march on parliament.
Socialist Party members and supporters have influenced the strike around a clear set of demands:
A leaflet has been produced by Socialist Party members Keith Gibson (also a member of the strike committee) and John McEwan, for the Italian migrant workers at the site. We publish the document below not in anticipation of many readers of this blog speaking Italian, but to demonstrate that this is a strike about jobs and protecting trade union agreements, and not a racist or xenophobic action as the media and other elements on the left have painted it. This follows hard on the heels of the Polish workers at Langage Power Station coming out in solidarity.
Report by phone from Alistair Tice (Yorkshire Socialist Party) on the mass picket at the Lindsey total refinery North Lincolnshire. "The strike committee accepted the main demands of Keith Gibson and John Mckewan to put to the mass meeting today.
Keith is a Socialist Party member and on the strike committee and John is a Socialist Party supporter and victimised worker from the refinery.
The strike committee added an extra demand, calling for John to be reinstated into his job.
The demands were
The mass meeting overwhelmingly voted for the demands put to them by the strike committee.
Prior to the meeting Keith and John (and their wives who had came to support the strikers) had seen some BNP members in the car park and told them that they were not welcome, with that the BNP cleared off.
Socialist Party members gave out over 700 leaflets putting our position (which was now the position of the strike committee) and the leaflet was welcomed. One worker (before he read the leaflet) thought that were giving out BNP leaflets and protested that he was not a racist and didn't support the BNP and was relieved when it was explained to him that they were Socialist Party leaflets and supported workers unity.
Keith is part of the negotiating committee that is now in discussions with the management at the refinery. The strike is continuing and looks as if it is spreading throughout the country at the time of writing with Sellafield and Heysham nuclear plants out. Workers at other plants, according to the BBC, have also decided to stay out, these include Grangemouth and Longannon in Scotland. Warrington and Staythope in Newark are also out as well.
The strikes are spreading from fiddlers ferry in Warrington to the Drax power station in Yorkshire."
Iceland, Greece, France, Latvia ….. all across Europe workers are taking to the streets in protest against governments that have let the fat-cats get rich while our jobs, wages and pensions are being attacked.
Thousands of construction workers in oil refineries and other major utilities sites are still on strike. There were mass meetings in the Lindsey and Conoco refinery sites in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Friday and Socialist Party members were well received with 18 copies of the Socialist sold.
The main issue is not that "foreign" workers are being brought in by the employers, as reported in the media, but that there are thousands of unemployed construction workers.
The Socialist Party is raising the demand that any worker should be part of the national engineering construction agreements that cover the wages and conditions on the sites.
We are also calling for an unemployment registrar to be set up under union control that can supply labour to the sites when that is needed.
The reason for the strikes is that the employers have awarded the contracts to an Italian firm that has brought in labour which is not part of the national agreements.
A six-strong strike committee has been set up with a Socialist Party member on the committee. The strikes have been spreading like wild fire according to the BBC, currently covering sites from Scotland to Wales and from Northern Ireland to Merseyside.
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What's Really Behind the Lindsey Oil Refinery Strike?
By Keith Gibson, GMB Union (pc), Socialist Party member and member of the unofficial strike committee
A ninety day redundancy notice had been issued around mid November 2008 at Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) for Shaws' workforce.
This meant that by February 17th 2009 a number of Shaws' construction workers (LOR) would be made redundant.
The day before the Christmas holiday Shaws' shop-stewards reported to the men that a part of the contract on LOR's HDS3 plant had been awarded to IREM, an Italian company.
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.
Stewards and Union Officials asked to meet with IREM a.s.a.p. after Christmas to clarify the proposal i.e. would IREM employ British labour? Shaws' workforce were told that the IREM workforce would be housed in floating barges in Grimsby docks for the duration of the job, they would be bussed to work in the morning, bussed to and from the barge for lunch.
IREM workers would work from 7.30am - 11.30am and 13.00 - 1700. On Saturdays they would work 4 hours to make up a working week of 44 hours. The normal working week is 44 hours divided by 5 days, from 7.30 -1600 finishing at 1400 on Fridays (most workers work overtime).
Normal breaks include 10 minutes in a morning and a 30 minute dinner break. Stewards were told that IREM workers would be paid the national rate for the job; to date this has not been confirmed.
After Christmas the nominated Shop Stewards entered into negotiations with IREM. Meanwhile, 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.
It was decided that all Blue Book sites covered by the National Agreement for the Engineering and Construction Industry (NAECI) should send delegations down to Staythorpe to protest against Alstoms' actions.
The workforce on the LOR site sent delegations. Then, on Wednesday 28th January 2009 Shaws' workforce were told by the Stewards that IREM had stated they would not be employing British labour.
The entire LOR workforce, from all subcontracting companies, met and voted unanimously to take immediate unofficial strike action.
The following day over a thousand construction workers from LOR, Conoco and Easington sites descended outside LOR's gate to picket and protest.
This was the spark that ignited the spontaneous unofficial walk outs of our brother construction workers across the length and breadth of Britain.
This worker solidarity is against the 'conscious blacking' of British construction workers by company bosses who refuse to recruit skilled British labour in the U.K.
The workers of LOR, Conoco and Easington did not take strike action against immigrant workers. Our action is rightly aimed against company bosses who attempt to play off one nationality of worker against the other and undermine the NAECI agreement.
THE B.N.P. SHOULD TAKE HEED, U.K. CONTRUCTION WORKERS WILL NOT TOLERATE 'ANOTHER RACIST ATTEMPT' TO SEVER FRATERNAL RELATIONS WITH WORKERS FROM OTHER NATIONS
The BNP held a brief stall in Exeter High Street yesterday, and faced with various opponents including the Socialist Party and complaints from the public which attracted the Police, they were forced to pack up and retreat. Unfortunately the Police then made everyone pack up their stalls for the sake of appearing 'even-handed'.
Devon Socialist Party Public Meeting
On Thursday the 15th, Exeter Socialist Students took to the high street, not to take advantage of the recession bargains, but to campaign on behalf of Robbie Segal, Socialist Party activist and USDAW presidential candidate. Robbie’s campaign follows her recent bid for general secretary of the union, where she won 40% of the vote, despite a fierce counter-campaign led by the union’s pro-New Labour right wing.
After receiving an outstanding 40% of the vote in the recent election for General Secretary of USDAW (Shopworkers union), Robbie Segal has been asked to stand for President of the Union by rank and file members fed up of a leadership completely craven in their acceptance of all that New Labour and the bosses throw at their members. She is also standing to be reelected as a member of the National Executive.
