Last updated at 09:27, Friday, 06 February 2009

British jobs for British workers... Gordon Brown’s words have been enthusiastically embraced, by British workers who want British jobs.

Protesters gather outside the Lindsey Oil Refinery

You might think the Prime Minister would be pleased... but apparently not. This week’s wildcat strikes suggest that the sentiment which worked well as a soundbite is not easily translating to the factory floor.

The row flared up after French oil company Total, which owns Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire, awarded construction work there to Italian company IREM, which opted to employ 300 of its Italian workers.

As unemployment soars in the UK, this did not go down well with British workers at Lindsey and other energy plants, including Sellafield. On Monday 1,300 contractors at west Cumbria’s nuclear plant walked out for 24 hours in support of action at Lindsey.

Total has since agreed to create jobs for more than 100 local workers, but the underlying issues remain. Union leaders suspect IREM undercut rival UK contractors by paying its workers less than the rates agreed for their British counterparts. Total denies this and investigations continue into whether any laws have been broken.

The finer points of European employment law are unlikely to placate those unhappy at hundreds of foreign workers coming to Britain in a recession and taking what they feel should be their jobs.

While hundreds of thousands of foreign workers have arrived in the UK during the past five years – with more than 10,000 in Cumbria – they have taken jobs which locals either did not want, in areas such as tourism and food processing, or were not qualified to do, such as dentistry.

There are no examples of foreign contractors in Cumbria doing jobs which locals saw as theirs, but that could change.

Later this year Sellafield may well be named as the site of at least one new nuclear reactor.

Construction would employ thousands of people and Copeland MP Jamie Reed has expressed his desire to see as many Cumbrians involved as possible.

Speaking at Sellafield last month, he said: “I am intending to take through a bill in the House of Commons calling for major projects like this to be staffed first and foremost with local labour before contracts from elsewhere are brought in.”

Peter Kane, Sellafield site convenor for the GMB union, is also concerned about where the workforce would come from, and whether Cumbria could call on enough local talent. “Have we got the skills in Cumbria to build two new reactors at Sellafield?” asks Kane. “If we have, all well and good. If we haven’t, who is going to provide the skills? How many employers are offering apprenticeships?”

These questions have been raised at Lindsey. Business minister Lord Mandelson claimed the contract was originally awarded to a British firm which did not fulfil it, so the job was given to IREM.

Instead of blaming foreign companies, should the UK look closer to home at whether it has the skills – and the drive – to compete with foreign workers?

New figures reveal that the number of so-called Neets – 16-24-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training – rose to 850,000 in 2007.

During the economic boom, increased freedom of movement within the European Union saw millions of workers, most from eastern European countries like Poland, arrive in the UK to do jobs which the natives did not want.

Between January 2002 and June 2008, 13,000 foreign nationals applied for a National Insurance number to work in Cumbria. More than half took jobs in catering and hospitality.

Until the economic downturn there were few complaints – quite the opposite. Andrew Thompson is manager of Gates Tyres at Kingstown, Carlisle. Gates employs three Poles, who were taken on after the company was disappointed by the quality of some local workers.

“We employed the Polish lads because we were getting young local lads, training them up, then after a week you’d never see them again,” says Thompson. “But I can see where the power workers are coming from. You’ve got to look after your own as well.”

Some of Cumbria’s biggest employers, including Pirelli and Cavaghan & Gray, have recruited eastern European staff, helping change the county’s cultural makeup. The 2001 census showed that 1.9 per cent of Cumbria’s population was not white British. By 2006 this had grown to just over three per cent.

There is no official record of how many economic migrants have left but anecdotal evidence says many have returned home, and the numbers applying to come here have fallen steeply since the economic downturn began.

During the third quarter of 2007, 445 vacancies in Cumbria were filled by migrants. In the same period last year this fell to 215.

Viv Dodd is a former director of economic development at Carlisle City Council and now runs business advisory group Cumbria Business 4 Business.

He feels that the UK and Cumbria should remember the advantages which economic migrants have brought rather than calling for restrictions on their number.

“Over the last several years the Cumbrian economy has benefited greatly from foreign workers: their flexibility, their willingness to work. It’s not long ago that the construction industry was struggling to get workers.

“We didn’t have the necessary skills and attitudes. I really don’t know what we would have done without foreign workers.

“I think the reaction at Lindsey is almost inevitable under the economic climate. Unfortunately I’d have to say some of it is close to xenophobia.

“I have got sympathy for the power workers. But you accept the benefits of foreign workers and you have to accept the opposite. The positives heavily outweigh the disadvantages. Not just in the economy but in the contribution they make to the towns and cities where they live.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Joel Rasbash, equality officer at Cumbria County Council. “The tourism industry in the Lake District would find it virtually impossible to operate without migrant labour.

“Their presence has allowed services in rural areas to have another lease of life. They’re using village post offices and shops.

“Most are in their 20s and 30s and we desperately need that age group in Cumbria because we have an ageing county.

“They’re paying taxes and buying goods and on the whole they’re not using health services.

“You can’t blame the current downturn on people from different nationalities. If the work shrinks, the number of migrants shrinks. Anyone who seeks to exploit the situation by dividing people from different backgrounds is damaging the interests of everybody in Cumbria.

“Culturally it’s a great boost. It opens up the county to the range of cultures and lifestyles that Europe and the world offers.”

Unemployed construction workers in Lincolnshire might be forgiven right now for struggling to appreciate the cultural joys of Italy. But although the fine detail of the Lindsey contract is still being unravelled, the principle of freedom of movement within the EU has certainly benefited Britain.

An estimated 1.5m British people are working elsewhere in Europe. And it is difficult for ministers to complain about Total or IREM when the government has promoted the open economy which sees lucrative European export markets for British companies, including many in Cumbria.

As at Lindsey, this coin has two sides. With so many foreign companies operating in the UK, and with many of Britain’s best-known brands now under foreign ownership, perhaps it’s not surprising that some will have no qualms in employing staff from anywhere in Europe.

European jobs for European workers? Perhaps it should carry just as much resonance as Gordon Brown’s soundbite. If he didn’t already know that it doesn’t, he does now.

First published at 05:23, Friday, 06 February 2009
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk