Thousands of construction workers around the UK have walked out in support of 200 workers who began a wildcat strike on Tuesday at the South Hook LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.
The unofficial action at Milford Haven is over the use of foreign labour above local labour, in breach of a national agreement.
Shop steward Jason Smith said a contracting firm’s decision to only employ Polish labour for a phase of work had got ‘everybody’s backs up’.
He added: ‘The only reason we’re here is the lads all feel let down. The site agreement has always been local and British labour first.’
Thousands at three oil refineries in north Lincolnshire – Lindsey near Killingholme, ConocoPhillips, Humber, and Staythorpe – have walked out in support of the South Hook LNG strike.
Lindsey Oil Refinery shop steward Tony Ryan told the BBC that the South Hook workers ‘came out in support of us in February and we are doing the same.
‘They are suffering the same hardship as we suffered in February and the same discrimination and they have asked for our support and we are giving it fully.’
Senior GMB organiser Les Dobbs told News Line: ‘The unions have evidence that the Polish workers are being paid less than the national rate.
‘All three Lincolnshire plants are staying out and are meeting again at 6am tomorrow morning to find out how negotiations at South Hook over employing local labour have gone.’
250 workers at Aberthaw power station in the Vale of Glamorgan also walked out on Tuesday, as did 200 workers at the Fiddlers Ferry power station in Widnes, Cheshire.
One Aberthaw worker said yesterday: ‘We’ve only got maybe ten weeks left, here. After that, where do we go? We can’t get on other sites, they are bringing them in.’
Another said: ‘We’ve got to call on everybody, literally everybody – doctors nurses firemen police – we’ve got to call on everybody to come out now and start fighting.’
Paul Kenny GMB General Secretary said yesterday: ‘I have now had an opportunity to speak with local GMB officers.
‘They tell me that at the South Hook LNG terminal site which comes under the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NACEI) that there is a long-standing written supplementary project agreement which requires all contractors to maximise the use of local labour on the site.
‘This is standard in such projects to ensure that the local economy benefits from large infrastructure projects such as the one in South Hook.
‘I understand that a contractor, Hertel UK, who has the contract to do the lagging on stage 2 of the project has point blank refused to adhere to this written agreement.’
He added: ‘There is widespread anger and outrage at repeated attempts in different projects around the country to exclude local people from job opportunities on these projects.
‘The political spotlight needs to be turned on these companies so that discriminatory employment practices cease immediately.
‘People are at the end of their tether and patience with the clients who engage these subcontractors.
‘GMB is currently seeking new clauses in the NACEI agreement that will screen out this discrimination.’
• The higher education unions – the University and College Union (UCU), EIS, GMB, Unison and Unite – yesterday unanimously rejected a ‘derisory’ pay offer from the national employers of just 0.4%.
The unions said the new pay offer from the Universities, Colleges and Employers Association (UCEA) was the worst in the entire public sector, after employers increased their original offer from 0.3% to 0.4%.
The unions also expressed their frustration at UCEA’s refusal to commit to a national agreement on job security, as two thirds of institutions look to make cuts across the higher education sector.