Oil refinery’s international deal triggers backlash against migrant workers
Lucy Phillips
Publication date:
30 January 2009
Wildcat strikes have broken out across the country in support of a protest against the use of foreign workers at an oil refinery in Lincolnshire.
Up to 1,000 energy workers are reported to have taken part in an unofficial protest, which began earlier this week, at the Lindsey Oil Refinery. Staff became angry after the site’s owner Total gave a £200 million contract to an Italian firm, who will bring in hundreds of their own workers.
The strikers have today been joined by other oil workers at sites in Grangemouth, Scotland, Aberthaw in South Wales and Teesside, according to the BBC. Hundreds of contract workers at the ConocoPhillips oil refinery, next door to the Lindsey site, also showed their support through a series of strikes yesterday.
The protesters have called on prime minister Gordon Brown to honour his promise of “British jobs for British workers” – a pledge he made in late 2007 as part of a drive to cut down on migrant workers.
Unions said the refinery’s employees felt “powerless” and that the foreign workers had been brought in as the “cheaper option”. But Total said there would be no direct redundancies as a result of the contract being awarded.
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