The Lindsey Oil Refinery Dispute – Our Jobs or Theirs?

HERE WE GO, …….AGAIN!

(By Roy Davies, GMBATU Power Worker)

The Prime Minister and his cohorts in Westminster aided by sections of the media combine to sing from the same hymn sheet. The workers who are participating in walk outs and strike at the introduction of foreign labour are, ‘irresponsible…’, ‘acting against the national interest…’, and ‘fostering protectionism…’ The lyrics are the same old worn phrases handed down from one failed government to another acting in the interests of big business. Think, can you ever remember any government supporting any section of workers engaged in struggle?

The persons responsible for this conflict are not the Italian or British workers. The responsibility lies firmly on the shoulders of big business and its political representatives nationally and internationally.

Thatcher the arch monetarist who, with Reagan in the 1980s, ushered in this period of global financial capitalism laid the groundwork for this recession come slump that we are now experiencing. George Soros, the man who reputedly broke the Bank of England, recently stated that this recession would in his opinion dwarf the catastrophic depression of the 1930’s.

Thatcher aided and supported by big business destroyed manufacturing industry in Britain. There can be no mistaking the fact that the ‘flexibility of labour’, that both bosses and politicians now so eagerly espouse, is linked by a thousand threads to the defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1984.

The subsequent decimation of the manufacturing base meant over the years a depletion of the ranks of skilled and semi-skilled labour. Apprenticeships virtually dried up. By the late 90’s there were shortages of skilled labour as the demand grew in our construction, power generation, oil and gas industries.

The Blair/Brown era proudly stands on the shoulders of Thatcherism in word and deed. The background to this dispute is a proposed massive programme of new build power stations over the next 20 years, both nuclear and more likely coal. With an eye on the future, the oil and power companies have decided to test the water in the knowledge that there could well be shortages of skilled labour and they need to pave the way for cheap foreign labour.

The first demand of the workers in the industry must be that all workers should receive the same rates of pay and, as important, the same conditions. Many workers in this sector work upwards of 70 hours a week.

We should demand the immediate introduction of a 40 hour week without any loss in pay for all skills. That in effect would mean a basic hourly rate of 30 pound an hour for skilled men with parities established for mates. How can the power cartels say that is unreasonable when they make billions per year?

These are realizable demands which would answer the current conflict. The issue is not about Italian, Polish, German, African or any other workers. It is about an ensuing world depression manufactured by the power elites who control the banks and the economies of the world the self same people who sit on the boards of the petro-chemical and power companies globally. They utilize their power to maximize their profits at every turn.

As the global industrial ‘gypsies’ our current position and oppositional strength is in our unity. We are the toilers who do the work to create their wealth. Globally, capitalism as a financial and social system has proved incapable to stave of the destruction of our planet; it has rendered two thirds of humanity to pauperism.

Now in the advanced countries we have to watch as our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers in other industries and employment lose their jobs and be thrown out of their houses because they cannot find the means to pay their mortgage. Our children have no chance of a future or home. The majority of jobs on offer to them are either part time or crippling long hours on low pay. This applies to all workers whether it be here or in Italy, Germany, France, USA etc.

We have a choice; to come together as workers and organize our own destiny based on our needs and desires or let these power elites continue to divide and rule us on the basis of their profit and loss sheets with all the misery and destruction that entails.

To secure our futures, pay and conditions let us ensure that our Italian brothers now receive the same pay and conditions i.e. the full lodge allowance and the ‘add-ons’ that we ourselves would demand and get in the same situation. This must be linked to the immediate introduction of a 40 hour week at 30 pound an hour.

Also necessary is the urgent introduction of apprenticeships for our sons and daughters to cover for further shortages that will occur in the future.

What can the opposition of the power cartel bosses be? We are providing them with an immediately realizable set of demands which answer the crisis that they have brought on themselves.

Ø Fight the real Culprits

Ø For a £30.00 an hour, 40 hour week

Ø For international unity and solidarity