Strikes over use of foreign workers

hethmar

I think we are going to see more and more of these strikes/protests in the future. The British have sat by seeing millions of immigrants coming to this country when we cant even look after our own people. There was bound to be a backlash.

Voyager2002

Degenerate wrote: »

You missed the point. They should take applications locally. Any worker from any EU state can apply for a job here and move themselves to the UK. Shipping in an entire workforce from a specific country without alllowing competition from all comers for the jobs is not fair play.

With Italian labour rates and the pound/euro as it is, I don't see how they would even be cheaper.

However, the engineers and managers are Italians-speakers, and so need workers who can communicate in that language.

Moreover, the company is bringing over teams who are experienced in working together, and know how to do things the way that company does.

No, the real problem is that no British company was able to win the contract. That probably reflects our history of failing to train people; failing to retain skilled workers; and paying managers too much.

Oblivion

I think more so than any other previous recession, this one is going to see a lot of racial and nationalistic tension arising because of the sheer numbers of migrant workers who have come over here in the past decade thinking the streets were paved with gold.

No matter what the law says, in times of financial crisis and massive job cuts, these people will be seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Dave.

Degenerate

Voyager2002 wrote: »

However, the engineers and managers are Italians-speakers, and so need workers who can communicate in that language.

That's dubious. If the engineers and managers don't speak passable English they will have huge problems on a project of this size anyway.

wrote:

Moreover, the company is bringing over teams who are experienced in working together, and know how to do things the way that company does.

Dubious merit to this as well. I've worked in construction. With adequate skills and decent supervision, a team "gels" together quickly enough for this to be irrelevant.

wrote:

No, the real problem is that no British company was able to win the contract. That probably reflects our history of failing to train people; failing to retain skilled workers; and paying managers too much.

Whilst I agree there have been some failings in these regards, I find it hard to believe that there aren't enough skilled construction workers going spare in the current climate. If there weren't people available in the UK workforce to do these jobs they wouldn't be protesting.

DaisyFlower

Its a hard one and can be seen from both ways for this particular contract.

However, in general, we have millions of UK born and breed people who are capable of work but dont as they get a better deal on benefits and moan that min wage isnt worth going to work for. Yet migrants will do pretty much any job hence its usually easy enough for them to find work here as they are just happy to be earning regardless of the job/wages. So some of this has been brought on ourselves by the work shy and generous benefit system.

Degenerate

DaisyFlower wrote: »

Its a hard one and can be seen from both ways for this particular contract.

However, in general, we have millions of UK born and breed people who are capable of work but dont as they get a better deal on benefits and moan that min wage isnt worth going to work for. Yet migrants will do pretty much any job hence its usually easy enough for them to find work here as they are just happy to be earning regardless of the job/wages. So some of this has been brought on ourselves by the work shy and generous benefit system.

It's really a completely different scenario. These protests are about workers who want to work (and were in work until the downturn hit the construction industry) not even having the opportunity to apply for these jobs.

feelinggood_2

Degenerate wrote: »

It's really a completely different scenario. These protests are about workers who want to work (and were in work until the downturn hit the construction industry) not even having the opportunity to apply for these jobs.

But no-one had the ability to apply for the jobs, did they?

I imagine that if one of the UK companies that bidded for the contract had one, they'd have used thier own workforce too, so I don't see what the problem is?

Degenerate

feelinggood wrote: »

But no-one had the ability to apply for the jobs, did they?

I imagine that if one of the UK companies that bidded for the contract had one, they'd have used thier own workforce too, so I don't see what the problem is?

It doesn't tend to work that way in construction. Because of the transient nature of the contracts, core workforces tends be very small and people are taken on/laid off as projects come and go. I'm dubious that this was a pre-existing workforce. I bet at least half of them were recruited for this contract.

Errata

East Lindsey refinery is a joint venture of Total and Fina. Fina is actually Gulf Fina Chevron - which may indicate it's owned by Arab, Italian and French interests, or ownership may be even more complex than that.
Hull - just few short miles from the refinery - has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. In view of that it's entirely understandable why the refinery workers are angy about workers from another country being employed on the contract.

movilogo

When low paid Chinese workers manufacture electronic gadgets we have no problem using them.

But when foreign firms employ foreign workers, we shout.

Isn't it the rule of free economics?

We win some lose some.

Why not just leave EU?