Hundreds of workers protest against Italians/Foreigners 'taking jobs'...

[chilango]

Makes it simple for the benefit of some of you who are in doubt.

It not unlikely that a large company will receive some sort of favourable incentives from local government to undertake large projects. In return 'social benefit' is expected, for instance in partnership to identify local jobseekers with the skills or potential to do the jobs.

A company that deliberately seeks not to employ locals to drive down wages is parasitic on that area. End of.

Capitalism is parasitic by nature.

This is just one example of this.

 

[Random]

These strikers, despite what they say, want British Jobs for British Workers- and that is a racist sentiment

Typical liberal leftie. So worried about being contaminated with racism you're happy to go along with bosses' plans and call for workers to be sacked by them! Awful stuff and a real stragetic blunder. Sadly I think a lot of UK trots and anarcho lefties will have the same knee jerk reaction...

 

[kyser_soze]

Typical liberal leftie. So worried about being contaminated with racism you're happy to go along with bosses' plans and call for workers to be sacked by them! Awful stuff and a real stragetic blunder. Sadly I think a lot of UK trots and anarcho lefties will have the same knee jerk reaction...

As has been pointed out, if you just remove the word 'foreign' from the complaints and make it about workers vs bosses/companies that charge dissappears.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Why? Cant you get it that Racism and Nationalism are at the heart of the workers arguement here.

Pandering to these racist arguements in exactly the reason why the BNP got 27% in Newcastle last night

Or writing off people seeking to defend their jobs (by arguing for fair competition as some of them have been doing) as being reactionary racist scumbags drives people away. It also ties in with the line the BNP is giving on the left's attitude towards the strikers. Own goals all round.

Louis MacNeice

 

[snadge]

Here is my problem...why didn't you write:

By paying workers less money and charging them for food and secured accommodation the companies are saving a fortune, there is also the local knock on effects to the local small businesses, BnB's that rent out cheap rooms to the contractors, local pubs and shops all suffer...

why highlight that they are foreign?

what does that have to do with the battle?

A lot, the foreign workers are making more money than they could in their own country, by securing them in billets there is no chance that they will be allowed to join a union or hear the arguments being made, the employers are using these billeted workers in a racist manner, sort of waving a red flag to local unemployed tradesmen.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Look, if you failt to say, as the Uniosn shoudl be , that foreign workers are welcome here, to live and work, its a slippery slope to sacking foreign workers and replacing them with british ones. For Internationalists, a workers place of origin is irrelevant

These strikers, despite what they say, want British Jobs for British Workers- and that is a racist sentiment

You know better than them what they mean when they open their mouths? Carry on as you were then; you've obviously got it covered.

Louis MacNeice

 

[snadge]

Go away, racist troll

and you sir, are a banana.

 

[treelover]

The strikers are at the end of the North Wall blocking the buses from getting out - go boys!!!!

hotting up...

 

[chilango]

A lot, the foreign workers are making more money than they could in their own country, by securing them in billets there is no chance that they will be allowed to join a union or hear the arguments being made, the employers are using these billeted workers in a racist manner, sort of waving a red flag to local unemployed tradesmen.

That is all true.

But again nowt to do with being "foreign".

It is not too hard to imagine a similar scenario using workers from a more impoverished part of the UK in the same way.

 

[JimPage]

Or writing off people seeking to defend their jobs (by arguing for fair competition as some of them have been doing) as being reactionary racist scumbags drives people away. It also ties in with the line the BNP is giving on the left's attitude towards the strikers. Own goals all round.

Louis MacNeice

But they are not "their" jobs. They are jobs. Workers are coming from elsewhere in the EU to full them? So what?

Where has the lefts, and the unions, internationalism gone?

 

[snadge]

That is all true.

But again nowt to do with being "foreign".

It is not too hard to imagine a similar scenario using workers from a more impoverished part of the UK in the same way.

Employers already did that when Tebbit told us to get on our bikes....

and we did.

 

[treelover]

Awful stuff and a real stragetic blunder. Sadly I think a lot of UK trots and anarcho lefties will have the same knee jerk reaction...

Yes, its going to be either 'wake up time' or 'headfuck city' for many of them, not much on on the Daily Palestine yet(indymedia uk)

 

[kyser_soze]

A lot, the foreign workers are making more money than they could in their own country, by securing them in billets there is no chance that they will be allowed to join a union or hear the arguments being made, the employers are using these billeted workers in a racist manner, sort of waving a red flag to local unemployed tradesmen.

You've got to get over this whole business of 'country'. These are EU nationals, same as you and I, and they are working, for all legal purposes governing employment in the EU, in the same country.

Think of this like someone from Essex undercutting your wages rather than someone from Italy. They might be 'foreign' in that they're from another country, but as legal entities they may as well be from the UK.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Surely this won't just be about pay rates but all the other costs (e.g. taxes and social insurances) that the contractors incur and the means they have of recovering them (e.g. charging for accomodation); to get a clear view of the 'fairness' or otherwise of the competition between construction workers all the financial detail needs to be brought into the open.

If anybody has information on this could they please post it up inorder to make for a better informed discussion.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[kyser_soze]

Employers already did that when Tebbit told us to get on our bikes....

and we did.

...and now these guys are doing the same thing. They've relocated to work, the only difference is they speak a different language.

 

[Fuchs66]

LOL yes they are, they do not receive blue book agreed pay because accommodation is provided, it is the "get out clause" if you will.

How do you know they're not recieving pay for accomodation? I did in Germany because I was entitled to it, even though accomodation was provided.

 

[chilango]

Employers already did that when Tebbit told us to get on our bikes....

and we did.

Exactly.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

...and now these guys are doing the same thing. They've relocated to work, the only difference is they speak a different language.

There may well be other differences; please see my post above re. costs etc.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Bun]

no, he is not a banana, he is a cunt. Wanting workers fighting back to be sacked. The BNP are getting 27% because of freaks like him. Fuck off to planet trot..

 

[kyser_soze]

There may well be other differences; please see my post above re. costs etc.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Good luck, I was asking for the same information about 2 pages ago.

 

[treelover]

You've got to get over this whole business of 'country'. These are EU nationals, same as you and I, and they are working, for all legal purposes governing employment in the EU, in the same country.

says the true middle class 'global citizen' it may be correct, but i don't think it is going to wash with these really desperate people.

 

[chilango]

says the true middle class 'global citizen' it may be correct, but i don't think it is going to wash with these really desperate people.

It is correct, and thats why any resistance has to be on that basis.

You resist using an incorrect argument and you will lose.

Especially if that is an argument that plays right into the hands of the other side.

 

[kyser_soze]

says the true middle class 'global citizen' it may be correct, but i don't think it is going to wash with these really desperate people.

WTF? Here's a simple fact tl, the EU has been a single labour market for nearly 20 years. It's nothing to do with being a 'middle class global citizen' - UK construction workers were making up a higher % of UK employees in Europe a long time before the m/c were there - in fact because of the differences in things like law, teaching, medcine and lots of other m.c jobs in some respects it's easier getting trade work in the EU because there's a greater shared skills base and more commonality in standards - also driven by the EU.

So please, drop your own easy stereotyping - those who work in construction were global workers while I was still in school.

 

[Fuchs66]

There are several levels on the NAECI pay grades, they are paying foreign workers cat4 now which is agricultural worker so not 'technically" breaking the agreement, the pay should be cat1 and cat2 for all workers on a new steel project.

So basically the union fucked up by negotiating a weak agreement with more holes than a Swiss cheese and now they're blaming the result on a bunch of Italian workers, legally employed on a contract in the UK.

 

[JimPage]

Post By Nick Griffin on this all on BNP website

"This grass-roots movement by British workers in defence of British workers has the potential to spread like wildfire. We need all BNP and Solidarity members and supporters working in refineries, power stations (the Truth Truck got a great reception from the thousands of workers streaming in to Sellafield in Cumbria this morning) and on construction sites generally to raise with their workmates the idea of sympathetic walkouts. Spread the word!

The combination of the news of industrial action against imported scab labour in East Lindsey, and the 300% surge in the BNP vote in Newcastle, will make Thursday 29th January a key date in the coming victory of our brand of moderate but uncompromising nationalism".

 

[kyser_soze]

Tl, do you actually understand what the Single European Act means in terms of work?

 

[Fuchs66]

cat4 pay comes with the proviso of "on site accommodation" thus living expenses don't need to be paid also.

So the agreement didn't include provisos as to the standard of accomodation that should be supplied tsk tsk

 

[Louis MacNeice]

So basically the union fucked up by negotiating a weak agreement with more holes than a Swiss cheese and now they're blaming the result on a bunch of Italian workers, legally employed on a contract in the UK.

The blame is not directed at the Italian workers, but at the company if they are shown to be employing workers from Italy and Portugal inorder to drive down their overall costs.

Louis MacNeice

 

[treelover]

Glenquagmire, stop fucking stalking me across the left blogosphere, the net is there for discussion!

 

[kyser_soze]

Glenquagmire, stop fucking stalking me across the left blogosphere, the net is there for discussion!

Wrong thread?