Engineering construction: Workers demonstrated outside the Staythorpe power station construction site, in Nottinghamshire, again on Wednesday 11 March. But Unite union officials seem to be quietly encouraging a winding-down of the action.
Most of the workers currently on the site are Spanish workers, reportedly non-union and walled off from access by trade unionists, employed by two Spanish sub-contractors. The demonstrations are for labour for future phases of the contract to be hired locally under the national union agreement for engineering construction.
The numbers on the demonstrations — workers from other engineering construction sites, and unemployed workers — have been dwindling. There were about 100 on 11 March.
The union officials’ focus is on getting better British legislation to implement the EU Posted Workers’ Directive. This is at best a long-term prospect, one which demonstrations at work sites can have little impact on, and one which may well have no serious effect on the problem of subcontracting being used in the industry to undermine the union agreement, union representation, and union strength.
Some activists have been calling for a national demonstration in London on the issues around sub-contracting. A national meeting of shop stewards has however decided against setting a date any time soon for such a march. Union officials say they have two negotiating sessions with the engineering construction employers’ organisation on 11 March and 8 April, and campaign plans should be rediscussed after that.
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GMB says sub-contract workers paid below agreed rate
The GMB has issued the following press release, citing evidence that sub-contracted workforces "posted" into the UK for engineering constructed are being paid below union rates.
EMPLOYERS MUST AGREE TO PROPER AUDITING TO AVERT A NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL ACTION BALLOT ACROSS THE UK ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, SAYS GMB
Document shows that Polish sub-contractor at Isle of Grain is paying £4 per hour below the nationally agreed rate as evidence also mounts of undercutting at the Lindsay Oil Refinery
The trade unions at the Isle of Grain engineering construction site, where Alstom are building a gas fired power station, are in possession of a copy of a contract for a Polish worker employed by sub-contractor Remak which pays this worker £4 per hour below the UK nationally agreed rate of pay. Under the UK Engineering Construction Industry National Agreement the national rate of pay for an advanced craftsmen is £14.00 an hour. The contract states that this Polish worker, on the same grade, will receive £10.01 an hour working for Remak at the Isle of Grain site.
New power stations are being built at the two sites, for EON at the Isle of Grain in Kent and for RWE at Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire. Both sites are being managed by main contractor Alstom. Alstom is using sub-contractors Remak and Zre Katowice at the Isle of Grain and sub-contractors FNN and Mon Presior at Staythorpe. This evidence regarding Remak is backed up by statements for Zre Katowice that they too are paying lower rates of pay than the national agreement.
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said, “As well as this evidence from Isle of Grain that sub-contractors are paying below the nationally agreed rates GMB Organisers also have documentary evidence of the same thing at the Lindsay Oil Refinery site.
It is shameful that nowhere in the ACAS report on the Lindsay dispute did you find that ACAS actually established what rate of pay the Italian contractor was paying those workers brought in. The very nub of the dispute was ignored, or maybe conveniently forgotten about, by ACAS.
GMB members have had enough of being lied to by contractors, sub contractors and their apologists at ACAS and in Parliament on this issue. This lying will have to stop. Yesterday at the NJC the trades unions submitted a claim to the employers for proper auditing before contacts are awarded to satisfy our members that subcontractors bidding for the work can afford and plan to pay agreed rates before they can even be considered for the work.
GMB expect the employers to agree to this auditing on Grain and Staythorpe which ACAS indicated is a way forward (See Note 1). If they do not GMB’s CEC will have no hesitation is sanctioning a national ballot for official industrial action across the engineering construction industry.”
Notes:
1 Para 26 of the ACAS report says as follows:
“An enhanced role for the NAECI independent auditor in both the tendering and project monitoring processes, if this could be agreed, would, we believe, play an important part in helping to overcome some of the difficulties that this dispute has raised.”
2 The workforce is engineering construction workers which include steel workers, platers and welders.
3 Staythorpe power station will be a compact industrial facility located on a brownfield site that housed the two previous coal stations. The power station will comprise four generating units, each around 400MW, with the combined ability to generate power for almost two million homes.
E.ON is building a 1,275MW gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) station on the Isle of Grain in Kent, UK. The £500m station will have three combined-cycle units that will burn natural gas, and will supply waste heat in the form of hot water to the nearby liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. That will make Grain one of the world's largest CHP plants, and will take its overall efficiency to an expected 72%. The Grain plant will be at the same site as the existing oil-fired station. This 30-year-old oil-fired plant develops 1,355MW and is used infrequently, but must close for environmental reasons by late 2015.
4 The aim of the 1996 EU Posted Workers Directive is to protect the rights of workers sent abroad to work in another European Union country. In regard to the construction industry, it aims to further protect posted workers from exploitation. Conversely, in particular regard to the construction, contracting and building sectors, it protects domestic construction workers and contractors in the host country from unregulated wage competition or social dumping (this was dealt with under Article 3). The Directive addressed the need to create a basic framework of equal treatment for workers within the territory where (building and construction) work is undertaken. Under article 3(8) to apply the directive properly, in the current environment, the United Kingdom has simply to decide which collective agreements to apply.
5 In 2004, the Labour Party gave the following commitment “Assurance that Posting of Workers Directive will not lead to under-cutting “.