Earlier today, the day before a program of indefinite strike action was due to commence, Linamar bosses have caved in and reinstated Rob Williams.
He has been unconditionally reinstated as convener at the former Visteon / Fords car parts factory from tomorrow!
There will be a victory rally outside the factory as Rob goes into work tomorrow. Rob thanks everyone for all the messages of support, donations and meeting invitations. Each initiative helped build the confidence of the workers at Linamar.
This fantastic example is a clear demonstration of what determined, militant action can achieve with the backing of our union and solidarity networks.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Monday, 8 June 2009
United Left on the Lindsey construction workers dispute - “British Jobs for British Workers“?
The recent unofficial stoppage by the highly unionised skilled construction workers at Lindsey Oil Refinery quickly spread to a nationwide unofficial walk-out by fellow workers on construction sites around the country. It quickly became the subject of media coverage in Britain and throughout Europe, where it was portrayed as simply a racially inspired dispute to keep British jobs for British workers. The reality was rather different.
The fact of the matter was that the strikers at Lindsey and the scores of other construction sites around the country included not only British workers but Poles, Germans and other nationalities too. The strike was never about foreign workers, but about cheap low contract labour being used in place of domestically hired labour paid according to the national collective bargaining agreement. What’s more, Lindsey was seen as the tip of the iceberg. Scores of major public contracts are in the pipeline to build a new generation of power stations, and the belief is that contracted agency labour will be used in preference to unionised labour hired under the national agreement’s terms and conditions.
The construction site at Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire was for oil-giant Total. However all 200 workers required for the site were to be provided by a labour contractor, with not a single job to domestic workers covered under the national collective bargaining agreement, to which the employer is a signatory. The successful contractor brought in workers from Italy and Portugal whom they housed in dubious conditions on a boat moored in a dock nearby. Intense secrecy surrounds the exact terms these workers are on, but there can be no doubt it was less than the collective agreement.
The question of whether this was a racist dispute has to be addressed though. Some of the strikers held up placards bearing slogans including the phrase “British jobs for British workers”. For many this was to parody the very words used by Gordon Brown in speeches to the Labour Party Conference and the TUC Congress in 2008. Much to the surprise, not to mention disgust, of many trade unionists present when Gordon Brown made these remarks, he had clearly used this phrase to allay fears that Britain’s neo-liberal policies and encouragement of low cost deregulated labour markets would not jeopardise job opportunities for British domestic workers. However it was the way he had used the slogan in a poorly judged way to outmanoeuvre the fascist BNP which caused such concern at the time.
The BNP attempted to exploit the strike for its own ends, and is well known for using the slogan “British jobs for British workers” itself. Also some workers did sink into racist sloganising such as “foreigners out etc”. Both national and international media were quick to capture such episodes and portray them as if they characterised the true nature of the dispute. To the credit of the strike committee and most the strikers, most of whom are UNITE members, the fascists were shown off when their true intentions became apparent.
But no one should be under any illusion that the exclusion of British workers from jobs in Britain - because that is what happened at Lindsey- is highly racially-charged. It is a credit to the work of UNITE the union and the UNITE stewards that in the main the focus was kept on the slogan “equal rights for all workers” and “equal pay for all workers”. Unite the union has made it abundantly clear in its Activists Bulletin that the campaign for fair access to jobs for British workers in the construction industry has nothing to do with the exclusion of other EU nationals from work in Britain. It is about protecting people working in Britain from exploitation regardless of where they come from. It is a class issue not a race issue.
But the dispute points out the dangers of adopting nationalist slogans in a period of ever increasing unemployment. Even if the slogan “British Jobs for British Workers” is not intended as racist, it gives confidence to every racist who sees it raised. During the dispute, there were a number of incidents where the slogan was raised in other workplaces by BNP supporters to argue for the exclusion of “foreigners”. A by-election campaign in Kent during the dispute saw Labour lose its safest seat to the BNP running on the “British Jobs” slogan.
However, what our hostile anti-union media also failed to point out is that Britain’s anti-union laws and Europe’s recent controversial court judgements restricting the right to strike in such situations were a fundamental cause of the crisis, and indicate this was only a foretaste of more controversial and bitter disputes to come.
Four recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) decisions have confirmed the employers’ right to use cheap labour as a substitute for unionised labour under collective bargaining agreements, and restricting the fundamental right to strike in such situations. Firstly in the Viking shipping line case, the ECJ ruled against the Finnish Seafarers Union’s right to strike when the employer replaced its Finnish crew with one from Estonia on lower wages. Next in the Laval case, the ECJ ruled that the Swedish authorities in Vaxholm were wrong to cancel a contract to Latvian building firm Laval when local unions took action against the use of cheap labour undermining their nationally agreed terms and conditions. In the Ruffert case, the ECJ ruled that Germany could not enforce a Polish contractor to pay its workers any more than the minimum wage. In Luxembourg too, the ECJ ruled against the right to strike restricting an employer from using cheap labour brought in from another member state.
UNITE the Union has been very active in protesting these ECJ rulings which have now confirmed in European law that the rights of employers to move labour, to trade across borders, and undermine collective agreements supersede the fundamental right of workers to strike to defend their terms and conditions. The UNITE Executive was actually in session as the Lindsey walk-out was spreading across the country, and was in no doubt that the employer’s use of the freedoms provided by these ECJ rulings was at the root of the dispute. Unfortunately it was also in no doubt that the strike would be ruled illegal if declared official. Nevertheless the union did everything within its powers within the law to influence Government and seek a settlement. Finally the provision of 100 extra jobs on national conditions settled the dispute.
The public exposure of blacklisting in the construction industry demonstrates the real intentions of the employers. They are anti-union and will use any method legal or illegal to weaken union organisation on construction sites.
The recent action organised by London construction workers at the Olympics site calling for the ending of all agency working provides a road forward. If main contractors can be forced to directly employ all labour, site organisation will be strengthened and the implementation of national agreements will be forced on the employers.
United Left fully supports the Lindsey construction workers’ fundamental right to strike and the unofficial solidarity action by fellow workers across the country to defend the union’s collective agreement covering terms and conditions equally for all workers must be defended. The alternative is that unionised workplaces are smashed by the employers and workers hired at ever lower rates of pay as labour contractors take us all to a race to the bottom in workers living standards.
That appears to be the current aim of our neo-liberal European Commission, backed by the ECJ and supported regrettably by Europe’s most neo-liberal government, New Labour Britain. It is time not only workers, but society as a whole to wake up to the dangerous future laying in store for us.
The message is clear. Join the union and fight hard to defend your terms and conditions. Fight racism and fight for equal rights for ALL workers.
The fact of the matter was that the strikers at Lindsey and the scores of other construction sites around the country included not only British workers but Poles, Germans and other nationalities too. The strike was never about foreign workers, but about cheap low contract labour being used in place of domestically hired labour paid according to the national collective bargaining agreement. What’s more, Lindsey was seen as the tip of the iceberg. Scores of major public contracts are in the pipeline to build a new generation of power stations, and the belief is that contracted agency labour will be used in preference to unionised labour hired under the national agreement’s terms and conditions.
The construction site at Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire was for oil-giant Total. However all 200 workers required for the site were to be provided by a labour contractor, with not a single job to domestic workers covered under the national collective bargaining agreement, to which the employer is a signatory. The successful contractor brought in workers from Italy and Portugal whom they housed in dubious conditions on a boat moored in a dock nearby. Intense secrecy surrounds the exact terms these workers are on, but there can be no doubt it was less than the collective agreement.
The question of whether this was a racist dispute has to be addressed though. Some of the strikers held up placards bearing slogans including the phrase “British jobs for British workers”. For many this was to parody the very words used by Gordon Brown in speeches to the Labour Party Conference and the TUC Congress in 2008. Much to the surprise, not to mention disgust, of many trade unionists present when Gordon Brown made these remarks, he had clearly used this phrase to allay fears that Britain’s neo-liberal policies and encouragement of low cost deregulated labour markets would not jeopardise job opportunities for British domestic workers. However it was the way he had used the slogan in a poorly judged way to outmanoeuvre the fascist BNP which caused such concern at the time.
The BNP attempted to exploit the strike for its own ends, and is well known for using the slogan “British jobs for British workers” itself. Also some workers did sink into racist sloganising such as “foreigners out etc”. Both national and international media were quick to capture such episodes and portray them as if they characterised the true nature of the dispute. To the credit of the strike committee and most the strikers, most of whom are UNITE members, the fascists were shown off when their true intentions became apparent.
But no one should be under any illusion that the exclusion of British workers from jobs in Britain - because that is what happened at Lindsey- is highly racially-charged. It is a credit to the work of UNITE the union and the UNITE stewards that in the main the focus was kept on the slogan “equal rights for all workers” and “equal pay for all workers”. Unite the union has made it abundantly clear in its Activists Bulletin that the campaign for fair access to jobs for British workers in the construction industry has nothing to do with the exclusion of other EU nationals from work in Britain. It is about protecting people working in Britain from exploitation regardless of where they come from. It is a class issue not a race issue.
But the dispute points out the dangers of adopting nationalist slogans in a period of ever increasing unemployment. Even if the slogan “British Jobs for British Workers” is not intended as racist, it gives confidence to every racist who sees it raised. During the dispute, there were a number of incidents where the slogan was raised in other workplaces by BNP supporters to argue for the exclusion of “foreigners”. A by-election campaign in Kent during the dispute saw Labour lose its safest seat to the BNP running on the “British Jobs” slogan.
However, what our hostile anti-union media also failed to point out is that Britain’s anti-union laws and Europe’s recent controversial court judgements restricting the right to strike in such situations were a fundamental cause of the crisis, and indicate this was only a foretaste of more controversial and bitter disputes to come.
Four recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) decisions have confirmed the employers’ right to use cheap labour as a substitute for unionised labour under collective bargaining agreements, and restricting the fundamental right to strike in such situations. Firstly in the Viking shipping line case, the ECJ ruled against the Finnish Seafarers Union’s right to strike when the employer replaced its Finnish crew with one from Estonia on lower wages. Next in the Laval case, the ECJ ruled that the Swedish authorities in Vaxholm were wrong to cancel a contract to Latvian building firm Laval when local unions took action against the use of cheap labour undermining their nationally agreed terms and conditions. In the Ruffert case, the ECJ ruled that Germany could not enforce a Polish contractor to pay its workers any more than the minimum wage. In Luxembourg too, the ECJ ruled against the right to strike restricting an employer from using cheap labour brought in from another member state.
UNITE the Union has been very active in protesting these ECJ rulings which have now confirmed in European law that the rights of employers to move labour, to trade across borders, and undermine collective agreements supersede the fundamental right of workers to strike to defend their terms and conditions. The UNITE Executive was actually in session as the Lindsey walk-out was spreading across the country, and was in no doubt that the employer’s use of the freedoms provided by these ECJ rulings was at the root of the dispute. Unfortunately it was also in no doubt that the strike would be ruled illegal if declared official. Nevertheless the union did everything within its powers within the law to influence Government and seek a settlement. Finally the provision of 100 extra jobs on national conditions settled the dispute.
The public exposure of blacklisting in the construction industry demonstrates the real intentions of the employers. They are anti-union and will use any method legal or illegal to weaken union organisation on construction sites.
The recent action organised by London construction workers at the Olympics site calling for the ending of all agency working provides a road forward. If main contractors can be forced to directly employ all labour, site organisation will be strengthened and the implementation of national agreements will be forced on the employers.
United Left fully supports the Lindsey construction workers’ fundamental right to strike and the unofficial solidarity action by fellow workers across the country to defend the union’s collective agreement covering terms and conditions equally for all workers must be defended. The alternative is that unionised workplaces are smashed by the employers and workers hired at ever lower rates of pay as labour contractors take us all to a race to the bottom in workers living standards.
That appears to be the current aim of our neo-liberal European Commission, backed by the ECJ and supported regrettably by Europe’s most neo-liberal government, New Labour Britain. It is time not only workers, but society as a whole to wake up to the dangerous future laying in store for us.
The message is clear. Join the union and fight hard to defend your terms and conditions. Fight racism and fight for equal rights for ALL workers.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Rob Williams dispute at Linamar: management given notice of strike
Tony Woodley, the Unite general secretary, today gave seven days notice to the Linamar management of strike action from 6 am Thursday 11 June.
The notice was given at a conference meeting with Wade, the head of Linamar UK.
Woodley made it clear to the management that Unite would be prepared to fully finance a lengthy strike, no matter how long it took, until Rob williams, the elected Unite convenor, was reinstated.
Woodley was responding to Wade, who had remarked that the management of Linamar would accept the union in the plant but not with Rob Williams as the convenor.
In reality, Wade wants a union that would be compliant. He was clearly shaken when he was told this was unacceptable.
The shop stewards of Linamar are meeting later to discuss plans to step up the campaign to get rob his job back.
Please continue to send in massages of support and donations to the campaign.
Make cheques payable to 'TGWU branch 4/1' and send to 31, Waun Wen Terrace, Swansea, SA1 1DX. Alternatively, pay direct to Unity Trust Bank, sort code 086001, account number 20055051. Send messages of support to robbo@redwills.freeserve.co.uk
The notice was given at a conference meeting with Wade, the head of Linamar UK.
Woodley made it clear to the management that Unite would be prepared to fully finance a lengthy strike, no matter how long it took, until Rob williams, the elected Unite convenor, was reinstated.
Woodley was responding to Wade, who had remarked that the management of Linamar would accept the union in the plant but not with Rob Williams as the convenor.
In reality, Wade wants a union that would be compliant. He was clearly shaken when he was told this was unacceptable.
The shop stewards of Linamar are meeting later to discuss plans to step up the campaign to get rob his job back.
Please continue to send in massages of support and donations to the campaign.
Make cheques payable to 'TGWU branch 4/1' and send to 31, Waun Wen Terrace, Swansea, SA1 1DX. Alternatively, pay direct to Unity Trust Bank, sort code 086001, account number 20055051. Send messages of support to robbo@redwills.freeserve.co.uk
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