Wildcat Strikes

[chunky]

Anyone got an opinion on this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/oil-and-gas-companies-trade-unions-strikes

[Miroslav]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

No easy answer to that one... I know it sucks for those workers and their families, but I really don't know at this point how you stop these kinds of things. Globalization is here, the world is interconnected...and I'm afraid it's never going to be like it was before.

That said, with the current economic disasters going on...I would have thought that the government would be more focused on creating British jobs in the near term to boost the economy.

[Localizer]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

To an extent I agree with the union in that if you have a private contractor doing work in England, then you should probably be hiring British citizens. Then again, the bid was won by an Italian company and in a sense, if they want to supply their own workforce, then they should be able to do so. So I guess I agree with Miro more or less.

[chunky]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

Yeah I'm a member of Unite and I agree with Miro to. 12 months ago they wouldnt of even thought of supporting this. Last year Unite where defending a sports goods manufacturer for employing only Polish workers in a plant that had been given money from the UK government to relocate to an unemployment black spot in Yorkshire.

[chunky]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

I suppose the only way the strikers could gain anything here is if they could prove that British workers had been excluded from any recruitment for the new positions both now and in the future. But as IREM is using current employees I cant see the strikers are going to benefit.

[Localizer]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

the unfortunate part is the union leaders are probably making this more of an issue than it should be, just to get their way. Unions have become pretty much the same thing as rackets and unfortunately the only winners seem to be the union leaders and neither the company nor its workers.

[thesightless]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

this is why the accountants should run the world.

[chunky]

Re: Wildcat Strikes

The strike is now over. The Italian company has now agreed to give 100 of the jobs to British workers, putting 100 Italian workers out of a job. This whole thing stinks, If I was one of the 100 Italian workers I would reapply for my job and wait to get turned down because I'm not British. At least then I would have a legal grievance, unlike the strikers.

I also have a union meeting tomorrow, maybe i should suggest to them that we strike to get rid of the cleaning contract at work which only employs Indian & Portuguese workers and make some of the excess 1200 workers currently employed by us clean the toilets. At leased the jobs would held by British workers.