‘British jobs for British workers’ screamed the tabloid headlines when construction workers at Lindsey Oil Refinery went on strike at the end of January in protest at a sub-contractor’s intention to use exclusively immigrant labour. As support for the strikers spread, fears grew that we might be witnessing a chauvinist backlash by trade unionists against immigrant workers. Rumours spread of BNP involvement. However, as the days passed, it became apparent that, despite the determined attempts of the bourgeois media to whip up racist sentiment, the strike leaders stood firm on basic trade union principles and were able to carry the majority of the strikers with them.
The Lindsy strike, and others which have followed, have centred on the EU Posted Workers Directive, passed in 1996 which allows EU companies operating in other EU countries to bring in their own workers for a limited period of time. Several cases at the European Court of Justice, most recently in April 2008, have suggested that in some cases it may be permissible for companies to operate outside local agreements.
On 28 January shop stewards at Lindsey in North Lincolnshire told workers for Shaws construction company that IREM, an Italian company which was due to take over a third of the contract for Lindsey, was refusing to employ British labour. Shaws had issued 90-day redundancy notices in mid-November so that not only would part of its workforce lose their jobs in mid-February, but they would not be allowed to apply for the IREM jobs because of their nationality. They were also told that the Italian and Portuguese workers brought in by IREM would be housed on floating barges for the duration of the job, and would be bussed back to the barges for lunch: clearly a move to keep them separate from British workers and trade unions. The entire workforce across all subcontractors voted for strike action, and the following day over 1,000 workers from Lindsey, Conoco and Easington sites picketed Lindsey. Following this, the unofficial strike spread to over 20 sites across Britain.
Neither local strike leaderships nor their unions ever officially endorsed the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’, despite the efforts of the media and the Labour government, which argued that the jobs should go ‘primarily to British workers’. Attempts by the BNP to intervene in the strikes and recruit to their ‘Solidarity’ union front appear to have been firmly rebuffed by strikers, and BNP members were reportedly chased out of the car park outside a mass meeting at the Lindsey plant.
Strike leaders and their supporters have fought chauvinist trends by pointing out that British construction workers have been dependent on regular work abroad, from Dubai to Germany. The success of this strategy has been such that by the time of the Staythorpe march on 24 February, openly nationalist placards had been removed. Keith Gibson, a Socialist Party member elected onto the unofficial strike committee at Lindsey, said:
‘The workers of Lindsey, 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.’
A mass meeting at Lindsey confirmed a set of strike demands that made no mention of British workers, calling instead for all workers to be covered by national agreements regardless of nationality, trade union assistance for migrant workers and the development of links with trade unions in other EU countries.
The strike has resulted in growing opposition to the Labour Party; this has been reflected in discussion on the strikers’ online forum about withdrawing from the union’s political fund. Pressure from those leading the strikes may have helped ensure that the official trade union leadership also took a progressive position. Frustration at the inability of the unions to respond effectively to the government’s attacks led strikers to heckle Unite leader Derek Simpson as he spoke at the Staythorpe demonstration on 24 February. In response, he dismissed the opposition by saying ‘I went on every TV programme and put your argument in front of the British population far better than this march can do’ and then shouted that the hecklers were opposing him either because they were standing against him in the election for Unite general secretary, or because they were ‘from the BNP, or just because [they] were a tosser who’s had too many pints.’
Although the Lindsey strike has been settled with an agreement that included an end to the segregation of foreign workers, other disputes continue. The GMB union reported on 19 February that contractors and sub-contractors building a new power station on the Isle of Grain in Kent are seeking planning permission to use an accommodation barge moored on the Medway and a disused army barracks to house several hundred workers it plans to bring from Poland. More recently the unions have announced that they have in their possession a contract for a Polish worker at the Isle of Grain site with wages 30% below nationally agreed rates. Although the ACAS report into the Lindsey dispute said that IREM had agreed to national rates and conditions, it gave no evidence that IREM had been observing them prior to the strike.
The strikes have demonstrated the determination of the British ruling class to channel any working class resistance to the crisis into a racist dead end. Yet it has also demonstrated that despite the chauvinist history of the British labour movement, these attempts can be defeated
Thomas Vincent
FRFI 208 April / May 2009
