Mediators called in to resolve refinery strikes
Mediators called in to resolve refinery strikes
Saturday 31st January 2009
Mediation service ACAS has been called in to help negotiate an end to the strikes at oil refineries across the UK.Yesterday, workers at 13 power sites in the UK, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland joined in sympathy strikes with workers at the Lindsey oil refinery who are demonstrating against Total UK's decision to award a £200 million contract to an Italian firm IREM.
Employees at the refinery are protesting against the decision to award the contract as it will lead to the exclusive use of workers from the European Union at the site instead of UK employees.
The Unite union's joint general secretary Derek Simpson said: "Unite has raised the growing problem of UK workers being excluded from important engineering and construction projects at the highest levels of government, including with the prime minister and the secretary of state for energy and climate change.
"Unite's national executive has today called for a national protest in Westminster. Unite is consulting its lawyers on the potential illegality of some employer's practices in the engineering and construction industries.
"The union is doing everything in its power to ensure that employers end this immoral, potentially illegal and politically dangerous practice of excluding UK workers from some construction projects.
"The government must act urgently and insist that companies involved in engineering and construction projects give UK workers equal opportunities to build Britain's infrastructure."
Total has said that IREM staff would be paid at nationally agreed levels for the engineering industry and that they would have the same working conditions as the present workforce.
It added that no staff would be made redundant and stated that UK companies would be needed to assist with the project.
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