Where will the wildcat strikes end?
Updated on 03 February 2009
Nick Martin reflects on the difference between the strikes that started at the Lindsay oil refinery and other industrial action.
It is hard to work out where the wildcat strikes will end. At the Lindsay Oil Refinery in north Lincolnshire, where the unofficial strikes started last week, the men once again walked out this morning.
Of course, yesterday their actions spread across Britain as thousands downed tools and walked out in support of the Lindsay lads.
This was despite reassurances from Total, the company which runs the refinery, and the Italian contractor which is being accused of discriminating against the British by bringing in hundreds of Italian and Portuguese workers to work on a refinery extension.
The companies say their position is simple - they are doing nothing wrong by bringing in foreign workers to supplement the core British workforce.
And Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, told the Lords said that he believed the companies were putting all of the workers on a level playing field. He did say that he had asked ACAS to look into the situation anyway.
I have just asked about 20 men what it would take to go back to work, and none of them were able to say for sure the terms that would satisfy them enough to go back.
Having spent several days with these men outside the refinery, it seems to me unlike any other type of industrial action I have ever covered.
Normally there is a specific demand: a five per cent pay rise, reinstatement of a final salary pension scheme or whatever - but this, this is a bit more vague than that.
I have just asked about 20 men what it would take to go back to work, and none of them were able to say for sure the terms that would satisfy them enough to go back.
That has the potential to be a complicated situation. This is an unofficial strike. There are no union talks with management yet. I met some senior union officials yesterday and all they could say was that 'talks about talks' had begun.
I am sitting on a curb outside the refinery gates writing this blog. I am looking at the men standing around. They look cold and worried and many have already lost their jobs.
They want the Government to look after British workers, to protect British jobs, to have a fair deal. The problem is that the fundamentals of the European system mean that any worker can work wherever they like and there is no evidence yet that foreign workers are being paid less than the British.
So where does it end: with no talks, no discussions, no concrete answer to this complicated argument the workers may have to concede that there is no end to this argument.
There is a union meeting in the car park, so I must end this now.
