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Contractors at two UK nuclear plants staged a walk-out today in support of protests over the employment of foreign workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. The apparent connections between these continued demonstrations and the Laval and Viking cases of social dumping brought before the European Court of Justice in 2007 and 2008 makes us wonder whether the dispute over sub-contacting at the oil refinery is another case of social dumping.

Social dumping is a practice involving the export of a good from a country with weak or poorly enforced labour standards, where the exporter’s costs are artificially lower than its competitors in countries with higher standards. The Viking case concerned the re-flagging of a Finnish ship to Estonia with the aim of applying lower standards to the seamen on the ship. The Laval case concerned the application of Latvian wages and working conditions on Latvian workers employed by a Latvian company on a Swedish construction site.

On Friday 30th January, around 1,000 workers gathered at the Lindsey Oil Refinery to protest at the employment of Italian and Portuguese sub-contractors by the refinery’s owners, Total. The protests sparked a wave of sympathy wild cat strikes by unionised workers across England, Scotland and Wales.

Total insist that they were not discriminating against British workers when Italian firm, IREM was awarded a £200m contract to extend the refinery; the tender stated that IREM would employ its own workers.

However, the Italian and Portuguese workers will be paid the same wages as existing contractors working on the project. The union Unite argues that it could be illegal for companies to exclude UK workers from even being considered for job vacancies, which it claims has happened during the tendering process. IREM claim that their workers are skilled specialists, which would differentiate them from local employees. Workers at the oil refinery dispute these claims.

After Gordon Brown stated “British jobs for British workers” in September 2007, the government is now considering whether recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings had undermined legal protections for workers. The BBC reports that Health Secretary Alan Johnson, a former trade union leader, says that it “would be wrong” if workers were being brought to work in the UK on worse terms and conditions than British workers. He said both the government and trade unions strongly backed EU laws on the free movement of labour, but some of the protections in EU law may have been undermined by the ECJ rulings.

If foreign workers are paid the same wages as local workers and work under the same labour standards, this may not be a case of social dumping. However as Impactt has discussed before, the rulings of the ECJ form a worrying trend which may undermine local unions’ ability to negotiate and enforce collective bargaining agreements. 

On a far more practical note, it has been reported that the foreign workers will be housed on barges in the Humber estuary. Whether or not this is a case of social dumping, Impactt questions whether these barges are a safe and appropriate place for workers to live.  The company employing the Portuguese and Italian contractors should be ensuring that workers’ have a decent standard of living in line with Total’s commitment to ensure suppliers and contractors comply with their ethical commitments.

i,m currently on strike at LOR
You have hit the nail on the head with your comments on social dumping.
I’ve worked away from my home in Glasgow for over a year now within the UK. I feel more has to be said about what the effects of social dumping is going to have within the UK.
Is it right that free movement of labour within the EU will eventully bring my earnings and standard of living down to meet that of a fellow european rather than bring his/hers up to mine?
Government spin doctors and pro-europeans can say what they like about the benifits of the EU. But the future of the working class of this country is bleak to say the least.
The government bails out our wreckless banks to the tune of billions yet wont even give our concerns the time of day.
They know whats happening is wrong ALAN JOHNSON said so himself yet they stand back without any consideration for the british tax payer in fear of upsetting europe.
Instead why not rock the boat in europe and see what the responce is. I feel the problem we’re having at LOR is our stike commitee does not have enough awareness of european politics to know we can’t win this fight without forcing the government to look into the issue of social dumping.
This needs to be put more in the spot light if skilled British workers have a future because at the moment the arguments being put forward being laughed at by TOTAL. This is not the first case of suspected under cutting and it wont be last.
The only way to win this one is to challenge the government on their loyalty to the British people over their european ambitions.
Ram Alan johnson’s words down their throats and show the country that they really dont care about the working class anymore. Its all about the bankers and the big companies now!