Posted January 30, 200916 yr These are the words our Prime Minister famously uttered at the 2007 Labour Party Conference. But what did he actually mean by them. Refinery strikes spread across UK Strikes have been breaking out across the UK in support of a mass walkout by energy workers in Lincolnshire angry at the use of foreign workers. Hundreds gathered for the third day of the original strike at Lindsey Oil Refinery after owner Total gave a £200m contract to an Italian firm. They have been supported by hundreds of other "sympathy" strikers in Scotland, Wales and other parts of England. Total said there would be no "direct redundancies" as a result of the deal. The firm added that staff employed by the Italian company 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. rest of story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7859968.stm When asked about it in an interview he swerved around the subject, typical Broon never answers a straight question. Could this strike be just the tip of an iceberg? If unemployment gathers pace, will frustrations spill over into civil unrest. In a few European countries, this looks likely. There have been mass protests in France, Latvia and Greece to name 3.
January 30, 200916 yr yay, Grangemouth. Will have to fill the car tomorrow, no doubt this will have a knock on effect for petrol prices and availability in my area
January 30, 200916 yr I think legislation ought to be bought in that states that immigrants and foreigners can only be selected for a position if the employer was unable to find a suitably qualified indigenous person and can prove it The indigenous population need to be protected against immigrants stealing their jobs so I would bring in that rule, the indigenous people who have paid into the system for years should take priority over Johnny Foreigner British jobs for British workers FIRST
February 1, 200916 yr Thing is Broon and Mandelson talk about "protectionism being the worst thing we could do".... Then they fail to take into account the fact that the bloody ITALIAN firm at the heart of what is going on here in this particular case are THEMSELVES guilty of protectionism by saying the jobs will only go to Italian workers... Well, er, isn't that actually against EU "free employment" regs.....? :rolleyes: I honestly cannot blame people for being p"ssed off, and Broon/Mandy just blethering utter sh!te as usual is just going to be a red rag to a bull and cause all sorts of problems, maybe even letting scum like the BNP in by the back door...... We are living in unprecedented times now, so yes, even with my general pro-immigrant stance, I am absolutely of the opinion that until we have come out of this crisis, we have to look out for ourselves more, as should the French, the Italians, the Scandinavians, the Poles, whoever, with their own countries, and I would certainly stop these fukkin' exploitation "employment" agencies who import foreign workers and take the P1ss out of them, dead in their tracks.... The ordinary working classes of these countries have NOT created the problems, these problems have been the creation of the middle class bankers, employers and politicians, the working classes are only dealing with things the only way they can.... I am 100% behind this strike....All the way....But let's put the blame where it really lies.... Only one war CLASS WAR......
February 2, 200916 yr Thing is Broon and Mandelson talk about "protectionism being the worst thing we could do".... Then they fail to take into account the fact that the bloody ITALIAN firm at the heart of what is going on here in this particular case are THEMSELVES guilty of protectionism by saying the jobs will only go to Italian workers... Well, er, isn't that actually against EU "free employment" regs.....? :rolleyes: I honestly cannot blame people for being p"ssed off, and Broon/Mandy just blethering utter sh!te as usual is just going to be a red rag to a bull and cause all sorts of problems, maybe even letting scum like the BNP in by the back door...... We are living in unprecedented times now, so yes, even with my general pro-immigrant stance, I am absolutely of the opinion that until we have come out of this crisis, we have to look out for ourselves more, as should the French, the Italians, the Scandinavians, the Poles, whoever, with their own countries, and I would certainly stop these fukkin' exploitation "employment" agencies who import foreign workers and take the P1ss out of them, dead in their tracks.... The ordinary working classes of these countries have NOT created the problems, these problems have been the creation of the middle class bankers, employers and politicians, the working classes are only dealing with things the only way they can.... I am 100% behind this strike....All the way....But let's put the blame where it really lies.... Only one war CLASS WAR...... BLOODY HELL! that i did not expect! :lol:
February 2, 200916 yr BLOODY HELL! that i did not expect! :lol: What's unexpected about it....? I've always been opposed to the exploitation of immigrant labour by dodgy firms and agencies...... And now, I think it's bloody obvious that this is exactly what's occurring.... Foreign firms looking to circumvent domestic employment legislation, whatever that country happens to be, the Italian firms are attempting to circumvent our laws by importing Italian workers under Italian working conditions, just as we and the US "influence" legislation in former third world colonies to favour OUR firms (eg, Shell in Nigeria, Union Carbide in Bhopal, etc)... The same thing has happened in Sweden with a Latvian firm who are trying to circumvent Swedish laws and Swedish unions, totally flying in the face of the very spirit of the "free movement" EU legislation..... Free Movement of Labour within EU was NEVER MEANT TO BE an excuse for employers to have an exploitation "free for all"...... These loopholes in EU legislation need to be plugged, end of story, or this sh!t is going to happen time and time again, the unions have never said that they were against foreign firms competing for contracts, they're just against having the p!ss taken out of their members..... So, yes, this is why I made the post, NOT because I am anti-immigrant or anti-freedom, I am anti-Exploitation, which is rather different to yours and Craig's slightly jingoisitic-at-times posts...... And, I dont agree with ANYTHING that BNP or UKIP say, these people are poisonous, racist and xenophobic w/ankers....... My issues are with the employers who set up these conditions and with the lawmakers in the UK and EU who dont appear to be capable of making effective employement laws which don't exploit people..... That's rather different to saying "Britain for Britons only. Foreigners Out...."
February 4, 200916 yr Author Brown has now explained what he meant by "British jobs for British workers" and guess what.................... "When I talked about British jobs, I was taking about giving people in Britain the skills, so that they have the ability to get jobs which were at present going to people from abroad and actually encouraging people to take up the courses and the education and learning that is necessary for British workers to be far more skilled for the future." What a bloody idiot he is turning out to be. He just gives soundbites to get applause, but when he's actually pressurised into explaining things he backtracks. I wouldn't trust him to run a whelk stall.
February 6, 200916 yr "When I talked about British jobs, I was taking about giving people in Britain the skills, so that they have the ability to get jobs which were at present going to people from abroad and actually encouraging people to take up the courses and the education and learning that is necessary for British workers to be far more skilled for the future." What does any of that have to do with what's going on at this moment in Lindsey.....? The workers there are already highly skilled..... :rolleyes: And, it's all about a bloody foreign FIRM coming in and attempting to circumvent domestic UK employment laws while at the same time being guilty of the very "protectionism" that he and Mandy are waffling on about being "bad for Europe"....... What a fukkin' prat Broon is..... <_< a whelk stall....??? I dont think I'd even give him that to run.....
February 6, 200916 yr I support the workers. If the italians had been the bet people for the job, and there was no skilled labour locally then yes, i could see perfectly why they have brought in staff. But they have activley discriminated against British workers. From what i understand the company which holds the contract has lost it, and it has been given to the italians who then brought in workers without even advertising the jobs here. How the f*** they have managed toget away with that i dunno, because surely that breaks some anti-discrimination laws somewhere. Oh wait, i forgot, nobody give a f*** if it's a white brit that being discriminated against :rolleyes: Shame they aren't coloured, the government might actually give a f*** if they were. I must say, good on the strikers for telling the BNP and UKIP to f*** off when they tried to join the protest
February 6, 200916 yr I must say, good on the strikers for telling the BNP and UKIP to f*** off when they tried to join the protest They get even MORE of my respect for that one..... Typical of the fukkin' opportunist scum in the BNP and UKIP to do such a thing though.... The facts are that when BRITISH and US multinationals go out to places like Nigeria or other third world countries, they pretty much do exactly the same thing, try to circumvent local laws and customs, ignore the wishes of the indigenous population, and they give very few jobs to the locals or contribute much to the local economy (most of the money usually ending up in the pockets of corrupt officials)... For me, this is more to do with how big business operates when it goes into another person's country.... The Italians obviously do things differently when it comes to labour relations, so they dont really want to be bothered with how UK laws are handled, a Latvian company did a similar thing in Sweden, Sweden obviously has better labour laws which give more protection to the workers, so the Latvian company didn't really want to deal with that, so they hired Latvians..... <_< Same story here innit....? The EU seriously needs to address this problem of big companies trying to pull these "fast ones"..... But of course, they wont..... <_<
February 7, 200916 yr I dunno if its the hangover/sleepy-ness or just my plain dumb self but if this gets legalized or the go ahead, then will this mean me having to try even harder to get a job? I was born in Portugal and have been living here for about 12 years now..
February 8, 200916 yr First step on the way to FASCISM And you dont think that these bloody companies are acting in any kind of remotely "fascist" way themselves.....? Dictating which people from where can apply for which jobs....? "Fascism" is all about denying people their rights, seems to me that these companies are doing pretty much the same thing to the rights of workers, ie, riding roughshod over them.... Fascism, Capitalism..... Pretty much the same thing....
February 8, 200916 yr British Jobs for British workers :angry: Dictating which people from where can apply for which jobs....? "Fascism" is all about denying people their rights, seems to me that these companies are doing pretty much the same thing to the rights of workers, ie, riding roughshod over them.... Fascism, Capitalism..... Pretty much the same thing.... You are correct the moment you allow only British Jobs for British workers you are denying the rights of none British works, it also encourages copycat protectionism tactics in other countries. I'm glad Gordon Brown changes is stance from the original.
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