Wildcat refinery strike spreads across UK

By Alan Jones, Press Association

Thursday, 18 June 2009

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A wildcat strike over jobs escalated today when workers from several power stations and oil terminals across the UK took unofficial industrial action.

The dispute flared a week ago at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire when a contractor laid off 51 workers while another employer on the site was hiring staff.

Around 1,200 contract workers at the terminal, which is owned by Total, have been taking unofficial action all week as efforts were made to convene talks.

Sources said today that workers at several other sites across the country joined the industrial action, hitting power stations at Drax and Eggborough in Yorkshire, Ratcliffe and West Burton in Nottinghamshire, Fiddlers Ferry in Cheshire and Aberthaw in South Wales.

Contractors at a BP refinery near Hull also joined the strike action.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said he had been in touch with the conciliation service Acas and was seeking an urgent meeting with the head of Total to try to break the deadlock.

The Lindsey refinery was hit by strikes earlier this year in a row over the recruitment of non-UK workers.

Comments

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I work cheap!

colin_brown wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 10:19 am (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo7GOsXpDtQ

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Re: I work cheap!

almightymat wrote:

Friday, 19 June 2009 at 12:43 pm (UTC)

Tch, that's a real shame, but then ignorant people often have trouble getting ahead in life...

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History repeats itself

indpenden_mind wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 10:32 am (UTC)

I'm very much afraid that history repeats itself, especially if we are so stupid as to not learn from our mistakes. I very much fear that the 3 day week and electricity power cuts of the 70's are on the point of returning. In the 70's it was the Conservatives who bore the brunt of Union action. Now it is poor old Gordon Brown. He who knows he is the best person to get Britain out of the crisis and who believes that the Great British people want him to "get on with the job".

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BNP involvement?

bobbellinhell wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 11:16 am (UTC)

I'd welcome some investigation by the Independent as to whether the increasingly confident BNP are behind these strikes.

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Re: BNP involvement?

nightside242 wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 12:07 pm (UTC)

Nope, the BNP got kicked off the picket lines in the January strike. The strikers aren't against foreign workers per se, but they want all workers to be signed up to a National Labour Agreement and unionised, as currently agencies can bring in foreign workers (a common practice around the world in this industry, which British workers also take part in) at a wage underneath the NLA, as they are exempt from it. In Plymouth in January, about 700 Polish workers walked off site in solidarity with British counterparts. As much as it grudges me to say it, The Socialist newspaper has covered this extensively over the last few months, and have been heavily involved in it as I understand it.

I never thought I'd recommend that newspaper to someone though, looks like I'm going to hell!

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Re: BNP involvement?

sabate1936 wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 04:06 pm (UTC)

Trust me, I was an active militant anti-fascist for many years and am currently on the project in question on LOR. The BNP have nothing to do with this dispute and were booted off when they tried to muscle in on the dispute earlier on this year. This is a dispute over worker and trade union rights.

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Boston Tea Party date TBA

pcsobilly wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 11:32 am (UTC)

Why would anyone strike when all of the kings men are saying its all getting better, there are green shoots, homeowners are paying the lowest ever interest on their massive loans, the bank bailout liabilities, PFI liabilities, unfunded public pension commitments and spiralling public debt may not actually cause anyone under the age of 30 to spend most of their lives in what our government defines as poverty or inescapable debt.

Why only 232,000 people were effectively fired in the last 90 days, hyperinflation has not started, the value of the pound is a huge 70 per cent of what it was 600 odd days ago, food prices won't rise by more than 10 per cent this year unlike last, company officials use the fear of unemployment or the alleged harder working, better skilled, migrating workforce who'll do your job for less to hammer down pay increases below the increasing cost of living and in many cases to cut wages by 10 per cent or more with the employees agreement that must go something along the lines of, take the pay cut or lose your job. Thats if you're not redundant already. Why oh why would anyone strike?

Go on Gordon, Ed, Peter, Dave see if your ilk and your mercenaries can finish us off, we ll write it up once you and your kind are gone.

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Re: Boston Tea Party date TBA

indpenden_mind wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 02:29 pm (UTC)

I really don't think I could have put it better myself. Well done.

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Re: Boston Tea Party date TBA

indpenden_mind wrote:

Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 02:38 pm (UTC)

Of course, those of us who have left the country and gone to live in Euro-land are enjoying the challenge of a reduction of 30% in our pensions due to the market's opinion of "the best man for the job" and the fact that he is "getting on with the job" which, of course is what we all want (he seems to think) and the added benefits of not having to be bothered with any interest on our life savings (think of the tax we are saving) in order to finance the profligate, feckless lifestyle of the uncontrolled borrowers (I include Mr.G.Brown in that list). We are delighted. Of course, we pensioners who have already given our all to the Country over the last 40 or 50 years are of no consequence as we are no longer productive. I believe Mr.Mervyn King put it concisely when he said "savers are not as important as the economy" or words to that effect.

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