About 300 workers on the picket at the Staythorpe power-station construction site in Nottinghamshire on Wednesday 18 February. About half had come on buses organised by workers at other construction sites like Lindsey and Dimlington.
This was down on the numbers on 11 February, but I was told that this protest was better because the previous ones had been penned in behind crowd control barriers whereas this one took place on the road in front of the power station although the police kept us away from the site entrance and there was no attempt made to stop the traffic going in.
The dispute at Staythorpe is about British workers not being given a chance to apply for jobs on one particular contract at the site. These construction workers are used to foreign companies being in control of certain jobs and sites but a foreign management usually employs a mixed workforce with some local workers included. With this particular contract no local workers were given a chance to even apply for these jobs. There is a feeling that maybe this is so that the employers can pay the foreign workforce less because those workers are unaware of the national conditions.
Tom Hardacre (Unite construction lead officer) laid out the union leadership’s strategy which is to lobby sympathetic MPs to get changes on the Posted Workers Directive. They are having a meeting with the employers on 11 March. The shop stewards who are organising these pickets and unofficial action are calling for an unofficial national demo in London (this was later amended to a national unofficial strike).
When somebody from the floor suggested that all these things should be done at the same time the Unite full timer opposed it on the grounds that the best way to settle the dispute was by talking to the employers. I got the feeling that the full timer wanted to keep the official and unofficial action separate, partly because he’s got no control over the unofficial action, he couldn’t even get the strikers to stop blocking the road.
A striker from Lindsey spoke about the ACAS report into the LOR dispute. He highlighted two points from the inquiry’s findings. It says that IREM and by implication any other foreign contractor is not legally obliged to adhere to the NAECI agreement; and secondly that the host state cannot require adherence to wage rates other than minimum rates.
One of the shop stewards was trying to get phone numbers of shop stewards from other sites so he could organise more effectively. He was standing next to the union’s full time officials at the time, and I thought if those full timers really wanted to help the unofficial action they could have supplied these details a long time ago. The dispute at Staythorpe has been going on for six months! The union also seems to be dragging its feet over payments to unemployed workers who are supporting the actions.
Also noticeable by their absence was any official from the GMB. This is all the more surprising because three of their members, along with a member from Unite, are facing a de facto sacking on Friday for daring to speak about the dispute during a public meeting. These four workers are employed by contractors Motherwell Bridge. Over the past few months MB workers have been supporting the picket at Staythorpe and after the picket is over they take a vote to see whether they are going to go back to work that day. Two weeks ago they decided to take unofficial strike action for a week during which some of them spoke out publicly. On Monday four of them had their passes for the site removed. Management are dressing it up as a routine laying off of some workers who are not required any more, but they have not followed the usual procedures, and this is generally regarded as leading to sacking by the backdoor.
There will be another demonstration at Staythorpe next Tuesday, followed by a rally in Newark.
Statement by GMB leadership
This (in a statement issued 20 February) is what the GMB leadership say they're going to do. (But note the report above on what they're actually doing, or failing to do, right now at Staythorpe!)
"GMB CEC convene meeting of GMB shop stewards and officials to deal with organized threat to hard won terms and conditions of employment in engineering construction".
The GMB Central Executive Council (CEC), meeting yesterday [i.e. 19 Feb], was told that the contractors and sub-contractors building a new power station at Isle of Grain, Kent are seeking planning permission to use an accommodation barge and disused army barracks to house Polish workers who are due to be brought into the UK to build the station. The 70 metre accommodation barge will be moored at Damhead Wharf, Damhead Creek on the River Medway. The disused army barracks is at Chattenden on the Hoo Peninsula in Kent. Planning permission for the barge has already been given to Dr C Wesolowski from Alstom Power Systems to house 200 hundred workers between January 2009 and November 2010
The focus of the dispute about the application of EU Posted Workers directive in the UK has shifted from Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire to two new sites of which Isle of Grain is one. New power stations are being built at the two sites, for RWE at Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire and for EON at the Isle of Grain in Kent. Both sites are being managed by main contractor Alstom. Alstom is using sub contractors FNN and Mon Presior at Staythorpe and sub contractors Remak and Zre Katowice at the Isle of Grain. Alstom told the trade unions in January 2009 that they plan to use 250 Polish workers, employed at Alstom’s own execution centre in Poland, to build the next phase of Staythorpe and that they will not be employing any UK workers. Zre from Katowice plan to bring in 120 workers from Poland and will house them in the barge and in the barracks.
The CEC considered how to stop this discrimination against UK workers and how best to protect the terms and conditions of employment in the UK construction engineering industry. The CEC were told that as things now stand, the UK Business Department, EU Commission and European Court of Justice are a powerful and malevolent political force working with employers to cut terms and conditions of the UK construction engineering workforce. The CEC agreed to convene a meeting of all GMB shop stewards and officials to consider how best to deal with this organized threat to hard won terms and conditions of employment in this industry.
One aim is to secure amending legislation in UK Parliament to correct the failure to implement article 3.8 of the Posted Workers Directive into UK law which would make it a legal requirement that posted workers in this sector be paid the nationally agreed rates of pay. Another is to secure action at European Union level to deal with European Court judgements on the Viking and Lavel cases which opened the door to this discrimination. The European Parliament called by 5 to 1 for the Commission and member states to do this. In the meantime pressure has to mount on the employers to stop undermining terms and conditions and to stop discriminating against UK workers. One way of doing this may be to seek improvements to the transparency rules in the national agreement.
Paul Kenny GMB General Secretary said “ The CEC has called GMB shop stewards and officers to meet to consider ways in which members in this industry can defend their terms and conditions and stop employers refusing to even consider employing them.
These members have been let down by employers like Alstom, by the UK Government, by ACAS, by the EU Commission and the European Court. They need to look at how they can best defend themselves with the assistance of the union. The CEC have made clear that it will sanction an official strike ballot should that be the route this meeting decides to go”