Foreigners cause oil refinery walk-outs

[Baph]

In the midst of this recession that we're in, some people think it's a good idea to walk out.

People are being made redundant left, right & centre, and these people want to go disappear because the employer is under-cutting their wages with foreigners.

The fact that they work at an oil refinery means that inevitably the price of petrol will go up as well!

God job boys. :smt104

[timwilky]

Working for a company that has shifted a lot of its IT work to Poland, elements of turbines to India, Condensers to the Czech republic, lost about 25,000 UK jobs in the past 10 years, etc. I can understand why in a recession and people are worried about their jobs that people get a tad miffed about non Brits being shipped in to do a job a Brit is quite capable of doing.

Now with the way the pound/euro is going it will be cheaper to pay Brits anyway.

I was in our engineering offices the other day, talking to the the clever guy who does all our CFD, he is telling me that they are trying to expand, but cannot find experienced power plant engineers any more. No **** I think, we sacked them all 8 years ago and have not trained any since. The universities may turn out engineering graduates, but it is industries responsibility to convert all that basic background knowledge into specific specialist skills. It is the same in our workshops, we used to take on 1000s of apprentices each year. now it is about 20. And they think they can still find guys at the local job centre who can operate million pound specialist machining centres. We need to protect british jobs now, to ensure we are capable of doing the work in the future

[mike_avfc]

i think the poles who clean my car at tescos are great !!! at the end of the day they do the jobs the pond life on jeremy kyle won't

[SoulKiss]

i think the poles who clean my car at tescos are great !!! at the end of the day they do the jobs the pond life on jeremy kyle won't

Thats because the pond life dont have to work as long as we keep funding the lifestyle they have and believe they deserve.

[fizzwheel]

I was listening on the radio about this today.

They're are protesting because a big contract has gone to an italian based firm and in this time of recession the jobs the contract creates wont go to people that are living in the UK.

I tihnk they've got a point, we should be making sure jobs when they are available are kept within the UK job market and dont go out to other countries.

Its not effecting the major oil refinery's so hopefully it wont effect petrol prices, but I'm not holding my breath about that.

[Thingus]

If companies dropped their greed level by 10 or 15%, i don't think we would've hit this low... at least not yet.

[SoulKiss]

I was listening on the radio about this today.

They're are protesting because a big contract has gone to an italian based firm and in this time of recession the jobs the contract creates wont go to people that are living in the UK.

I tihnk they've got a point, we should be making sure jobs when they are available are kept within the UK job market and dont go out to other countries.

Its not effecting the major oil refinery's so hopefully it wont effect petrol prices, but I'm not holding my breath about that.

I agree - my previous anti-sponger comment was not aimed at these guys but the career-spongers we seem to have.

[Flamin_Squirrel]

If companies dropped their greed level by 10 or 15%, i don't think we would've hit this low... at least not yet.

As opposed to the workers dropping their greed level by 10-15%?

Besides, we ALL benefit from companies making healthy profits.

[Thingus]

What i mean is, that if companies paid a little more attention to the economy than their end of year pot, then so many goods wouldn't have fluctuated so much :p We pay twice as much for most goods/services than Canada and get paid maybe 1 third more? (i use Canada because i don't actually have any links with the USA :D)
I don't agree with lorry drivers asking for more pay, that is just greed, they get paid ****loads anyway as far as i'm aware.

(i show my relative youth in political arguments.. and i'm crap at explaining things!!!)

[Dicky Ticker]

Taking your comment about lorry drivers on board being overpaid [In your opinion] the wage in comparison to other industries is compatible and if British companies stopped employing foreign drivers who don't have the same training although they have a license the transport industry may be a safer/healthier environment.
Commercial driving is one of the few industries where you get prosecuted big time for doing overtime and end up working the most unsociable hours to conform to restrictions placed on access and customer requirements

[Ed]

The Italian company won the tender. Doesn't say whether it was on cost, quality, or whatever. But the important point is that the EU treaty allows the Italians to use their own labour - there is freedom of work and movement within the EU. Of course I sympathise with these people, but Total have said that there will be no compulsory redundancies. The world does not owe them a living.

[Biker Biggles]

Rightly or wrongly there will be a lot more of this as the economy melts down.In times of plenty we could afford to let the foriegners cash in on our economy(and afford to let the stars of Jeremy Kyle live it up)but times have changed and we need to wake up and smell the coffee.We are not that far away from social disorder now,and a few more points off the general standard of living will tip that over.

[maviczap]

The Italian company won the tender. Doesn't say whether it was on cost, quality, or whatever. But the important point is that the EU treaty allows the Italians to use their own labour - there is freedom of work and movement within the EU. Of course I sympathise with these people, but Total have said that there will be no compulsory redundancies. The world does not owe them a living.

As I work for the Govenment, anything that is over a certain monetary limit has to go on a Europe wide tendering process. It can be a real pain, as this leads to massive delays in getting equipment, especially as you know that the company you want to buy from is just down the road.

[Flamin_Squirrel]

Bump.

I found this damn funny, mostly because its true

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1549&Itemid=59

[anna]

Free Market, .. this as I understand encourages contracts being won by the highest bidder or best negotiator. When things go our way within this market no one complains.

As I understand this the contract was won by an American firm who then sub contracted it out to Italy. There were no British jobs lost in this process the contract was just not won by Britain.

Also there has been no evidence to confirm that those workers are indeed being underpaid from what British workers would be.