Britain

Lindsey refinery dispute:

www.socialistworld.net, 24/06/2009
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI

Workers show their strength

Keith Gibson, Lindsey oil refinery strike committee

In a symbolic act of defiance, sacked construction workers burned their dismissal letters outside Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) on Monday 22 June. This sent a clear message to the bosses of Total (LOR owners) that mass sackings, in effect a lock-out, will not intimidate hundreds of strikers back to work. As GMB steward Phil Whitehurst said: "Let them show us how many want to go back in there crawling on their bellies with their begging bowls."

Hundreds of Lindsey contract workers walked out on unofficial and ’illegal’ strike action on Thursday 11 June to stop 51 redundancies being imposed without consultation or the opportunity to transfer to another contractor. Since then, Total have refused to negotiate unless there is a return to work, yet have insisted that the 51 redundancies would go ahead anyway

Faced with this ultimatum, a mass meeting on 16 June voted to appeal for solidarity action from engineering construction workers across the country. Since Total’s ’mass dismissal by press release’ of 647 strikers, walkouts have spread like wildfire, affecting over 20 power station and petrochemical sites.

Total have declared war on trade unionism and the NAECI national agreement. This dispute is no longer just about 51 sacked workers, it’s about the future of our industry. The employers want to break the solidarity of construction workers and smash effective trade unionism so that they can get rid of the national agreement, to bring in cheap labour and drive down wages to boost their profits.

We won’t let them. We must stand united together to defeat these greedy bosses. They say they won’t talk unless we return to work - that’s what they said in February, but we forced them to. They say we should have an official ballot - but the ECIA (employers’ association) is organising to make the ballot illegal! They say we could apply for our jobs back - we won’t let them pick and choose. As steward Phil Whitehurst said: "We all came out together, and we’ll all go back together."

Unite steward Kenny Ward asked: "Would Total do the same in France? Absolutely not, because there would be tankers turned over on their sides... because the French (workers) wouldn’t put up with it... But our government will. Our government will be subservient to companies like this. But we won’t!"

We need to be more like the French workers. We are making a stand against unemployment and cheap labour, against the anti-trade union laws and against big corporations like Total trying to make us pay for their capitalist economic crisis. Support us in this fight.

Appeal for messages of support

Please send solidarity messages to doyle_a5@sky.com with copies to geminis@geminis.karoo.co.uk and to alistairtice@yahoo.co.uk. Text messages of support should be sent to Keith Gibson (Lindsey) on 0044 7743 135183.