UNOFFICIAL STRIKERS protesting the use of “foreign” – EU – labour at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire will be urged to return to work today on foot of owner Total’s agreement to offer some 100 jobs to British workers on the new contract at the heart of the dispute.
A relieved prime minister Gordon Brown yesterday urged the strikers to accept the deal negotiated by the conciliation and arbitration service (Acas), as Conservative leader David Cameron accused him of “pandering to protectionist instincts” and “taking people for fools” with his 2007 conference promise of “British jobs for British workers”.
During heated exchanges in the Commons, Mr Brown accused Mr Cameron of having decided “it is in the interests of the Conservative Party to talk Britain down,” telling him: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Significantly, however, Mr Brown chose not to repeat the controversial sound-bite embarrassingly displayed on placards on picket lines across the country over the past week, as Mr Cameron charged its use had been “opportunistic” and “a huge mistake” betraying “an error of judgment” for which the prime minister” should apologise.
Mr Brown tried to turn the Tory attack, demanding: “Can anybody here say they don’t want British workers to get jobs in our country? Can anyone here say they don’t want us to help British workers get the skills necessary to get the jobs that are available?”
But Mr Cameron wounded Mr Brown, suggesting Labour MPs sitting behind him were ashamed of a promise on “British jobs” that was simply not deliverable and which former Labour minister, Keith Vaz, had said would amount to little more than “employment apartheid”.
“Don’t you understand you’ve been found out?” demanded Mr Cameron, as the prime minister played for time on the vexed question of the EU “posted workers directive” amid union warnings that the issues at the heart of the Lincolnshire dispute would be revisited elsewhere.
“This is just the start of it,” said Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, reporting back on the terms of the deal brokered with an employer last week accused of excluding British workers.
Mr Brown reported that the Construction and Engineering Association had published new guiding principles for companies to consider when using non-UK contractors and labour on engineering construction sites. “I hope the whole House will welcome the fact that they now say . . . always consider whether there are competent workers available locally,” he told MPs: “If there are, it is good practice for the non-UK contractor to explore and consider the local skills availability and to consider any applications that may be forthcoming.”
However the tension at the heart of the British position on EU law and its capacity to see British workers undercut in terms of pay and conditions was again underlined when Mr Brown side-stepped an invitation from Labour MP Colin Burgon to back reform of the posted workers directive, which facilitates the free movement of services within the EU.