"British jobs for British workers" Protest...

"What he's [Gordon Brown] is saying is 'I want to see the British workforce equipped for the jobs and skills of the future' – and that's precisely what the Government is doing."

Workers carrying placards that said "British jobs for British workers" staged demonstrations at more than a dozen refineries and power stations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The workers are protesting a decision by Total, the French oil company, to award a $280 million contract to an Italian firm, IREM, for work at a plant in Lincolnshire, England. The project will involve about 400 foreign workers.

Total issued a statement saying the Italian company needs to use its own specialized workers for the project, which would not affect the normal operation of the refinery.
"It is important to note that we have been a major local employer for 40 years with 550 permanent staff employed at the refinery," the statement said. "There are also between 200 and 1,000 contractors working at the refinery, the vast majority of which work for U.K. companies employing local people."

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 31, 2009; Page A10

Ministers have promised an urgent inquiry into the award of contracts to foreign firms, in the hope of ending a wave of wildcat strikes across the UK, reminiscent of the 1970s.

Almost 5,000 placard-waving workers demonstrated outside 17 oil refineries, power plants and chemical works, as a dispute that began in Lincolnshire two days earlier spread to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, across the north of England and also the south coast. The protests are scheduled to begin again before dawn on Monday, when an additional 900 contractors at Sellafield nuclear power plant will meet to discuss industrial action.

In Italy yesterday, there was bemusement about why British workers were protesting. "We are sorry about what is happening in England," said Giovanni Musso, the vice-president of IREM, yesterday. But he added: "We won the contract and, as always, we scrupulously followed the local rules and regulations regarding work, the rules imposed by the trade unions and so on. We can't understand what's happening, but it's clear it is connected to the world economic crisis, and can also happen elsewhere."
He said that IREM's share of the work, sub-contracted by a US firm, was worth about £17m, and was due to be complete by April.

By Andy McSmith, Ben Russell and Peter Popham in Rome
Saturday, 31 January 2009

The grass-roots “British Jobs for British Workers” sympathy strikes campaign is going viral! After years of watching and grumbling as our jobs are taken by foreigners and wages undercut by cheap imported labour, British workers are standing up in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands most at risk of seeing their livelihoods ‘globalised’ away.

BNP :
January 30, 2009 by Nick Griffin
Filed under British Jobs For British Workers, Featured

I'm not quite sure if this is a legitimate protest or just racist crap - again.

 

Well it is standard practice to blame the immigrants in a downturn.

 

My question would be why is a French firm building a refinery there? Why isn't a British firm? And my next question would be is if a French firm can afford to build, why aren't they using French workers to do their building? Could cost be a factor? Why is it always more expensive to hire local labor? And why is foreign investment more capable of building on foreign soil than domestic? I know here in California often times foreign investment is given tax breaks and relaxed regulation in return for investment. If domestic interests were granted the same there might be more domestic investment.

 

because they're in the EU. that's that.

 

Please explain how that benefits the working people of Britain?

 

I think the whole things a big pile of steaming smeggy crap
Jobs should be given to those most competent. They cant expect a company to start giving them jobs just because they were born on this island. Thats horse shit and its the same old blame the immigrants stuff all over again. And they cant say the company has no right to be here with their existing workers, theyve done everthing legitimately and thats that. Theyre just bitter, silly people

 

The complaint by those striking is that it's experienced, trained British workers being laid off and displaced in order to bring in less trained, lower paid imported labor. How is that good for the country?

 

i didn't say it was a benefit, did i? i'm saying that's why foreign workers get jobs on british soil. it's part of the EU agreement.