Labour unrest spreads in the UK over hiring foreign workers
02 Feb 2009
As recession plunges Britain into economic turmoil, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is being seen fighting a losing battle to save the UK economy going into an abyss as new problems seems to crop up everyday.
Now he has to manage flash strikes by British workers on the issue of foreign contract workers being hired in Britain when 2 million Britons lost their jobs last year and at least another million are expected to loose theirs this year.
The strike originally started at the French-owned oil giant Total's Lindsey refinery in eastern England when the company awarded a contract to build a new unit to the Italian company, IREM, employing its own workers from Italy and Portugal.
this led British workers to stage a walkout as they were against the use of foreign contract labour.
Total issued a statement stating that it was not discriminating British workers and it was following laid down European rules and British laws.
The strike at this refinery triggered a series of flash strikes and walkouts at various other power and energy plants in the east and northwest of England with the government adding fuel to the fire by saying that ''no law of the country was broken.''
In central Scotland, 700 contractors at the Grangemouth oil refinery walked out for the second successivee day today while 200 workers at Fiddlers Ferry power station in Cheshire, also staged a walkout supporting the workers at Total's refinery.
Up to 900 contract workers at Sellafield nuclear plant walked off the job and a site at Staythorpe near Newark in Nottinghamshire also joined the strikes. Another 300 downed stuck work at the Heysham nuclear power plant and the Longannet power station in Scotland was also hit.
The BBC said in its news bulletin that nearly 2,500 workers will hold meetings to chalk out a possible strike plan.
The widespread flash strike is an embarrassment for Brown who had said in 2007 after winning the elections that ''British jobs for British workers'' but with the EU rules allowing Europeans to work in Britain and vice versa, Brown told BBC television that the strikes are "not defensible and its not the right thing to do."
Also speaking on the BBC, business secrertary Lord Mandelson rubbished the union's allegations that British employment laws were broken or that foreign workers were paid more than local workers, although he said he would like to confirm this.
British government officials have warned British workers against protectionism saying it will make things worse during recession if other EU countries adopted the same stance against British workers, thereby isolating Britain.
David Cameron of the opposition Conservative Party said in an interview with BBC Radio Five Live, ''There are many British workers working overseas and we don't want to see Italians, French and Germans striking to have them thrown out of their jobs,'' ading that Brown's 2007 comment of ''British jobs for British workers'' were ''irresponsible.''
The flash strike has caught the attention of people all over Britain with internet blogs and forums being flooded with sympathy for the strikers in a country where job losses are the order of the day.
The government has said that the energy supplies will not be affected because of the strikes and it has asked Acas, a mediation organization to intervene and broker a agreement with the striking workers at Total and the Italian contractor.
