Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Welcome to Slider's Dugout -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Real Man who wrote (14928)	1/31/2009 12:08:41 AM
From: SARMAN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50250

It also started in England. Germany is next. Action urged over energy strikes The government is coming under increasing pressure to intervene in the growing industrial unrest over imported labour affecting oil and energy plants. Hundreds of UK workers have gone on "sympathy strikes" to support a walkout by energy workers in Lincolnshire angry at the use of foreign workers. The original strike began at Lindsey Oil Refinery after owner Total gave a £200m contract to Italian firm IREM. The Unite union said it had urged Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take action. Unite regional officer Bernard McAuley said on Friday that the leaders of Unite and the GMB had urged the prime minister to call an urgent meeting with the heads of industry in the engineering and construction industry. 'Notorious' Ministers have also asked the conciliation service, Acas, to investigate the facts behind the dispute. Labour backbencher John Cruddas called on the government, including the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, to urgently address the underlying causes of the resentment. He told the BBC: "It's the employers in these instances which are culpable and we need to confront some of them who are notorious in this sector. "The government and Mr Miliband should be banging heads together this weekend to resolve it." British Nuclear Fuels confirmed that 900 contractors at Sellafield nuclear power station in Cumbria are to meet on Monday to discuss possible industrial action. Total has said there would be no "direct redundancies" as a result of the decision to award the contract at Lindsey Oil Refinery to the Italian firm. The firm added that staff employed by IREM would be paid the same as existing contractors on the project. More than 300 of its workers have been brought in to do the work. Sites affected by sympathy walk-outs include Fiddlers Ferry power station, Warrington, Cheshire; Grangemouth oil refinery in central Scotland; South Hook Liquified Natural Gas terminal in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire; and Kilroot Power station near Larne, County Antrim. Total bosses said IREM, which employs a specialist workforce, had won the contract to construct the new HDS-3 unit at the Lindsey plant, after a "fair" tendering process. The prime minister's spokesman has said the government would hold talks with the construction industry in the next few days "to ensure they are doing all they can to support the UK economy". He said the contracts at the Lindsey refinery were awarded some time ago when there was a shortage of labour in the construction sector, which was now not the case. When asked about the growing action, Mr Brown - speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland - said he "understood" people's worries. He said the government was doing "everything we can" to shore up the economy as well as help individuals back into work. Speaking on Friday from Wilton, on Teesside, one protester urged the prime minister to take action, saying: "All we want is for Gordon Brown to fulfil his promise. He said British jobs for British workers." But Employment Minister Pat McFadden said the prime minister's promise of "British jobs for British workers" at the Labour Party conference in 2007 had not meant that UK firms would be encouraged to flout European laws on free mobility of labour. Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said he hoped workers would return to work quickly after making their point. HAVE YOUR SAY Where is the humanity in ruining someone's local environment by building a massive industrial refinery and then bringing in people from around the world to work there? Ben Platt, Liverpool Unite's governing national executive has called for a national protest in Westminster, and joint general secretary Derek Simpson said it was consulting its lawyers over the legality of engineering and construction employment practices. In a statement, Total said it "recognised" the concerns of contractors. "It is important to note that we have been a major local employer for 40 years with 550 permanent staff employed at the refinery. "There are also between 200 and 1,000 contractors working at the refinery, the vast majority of which work for UK companies employing local people." The HDS-3 unit affected is separate to the main refinery. Total said the action has not affected normal operations. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2009/01/31 04:09:50 GMT