Related: Agent Provocateurs Missing at French Protests
"Britons protest hiring of foreign workers; Hundreds strike at site of refinery" by Associated Press | January 31, 2009
LONDON - Thousands of energy workers across Britain walked off the job yesterday, joining a growing campaign of protests against foreign citizens being hired for an oil industry construction project in England.
Seven hundred employees held a wildcat strike at the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, provoked by the decision of Italian construction company IREM to use Italian and Portuguese workers for a $280 million project at
Police said about 400 workers and supporters demonstrated outside a refinery at Wilton, England, operated by Swiss firm Petroplus, and others joined in demonstrations at power plants in Wales and Northern Ireland.
The protests reflect concern about Britain's rising unemployment, now at 6.1 percent, and fears of more layoffs. "The argument is not against foreign workers, it's against foreign companies discriminating against British labor," said Bobby Buirds, an officer for the union Unite.
Protests by up to 1,000 people continued outside the Lindsey plant, where workers walked out Wednesday over the contract for a desulfurization unit.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the contract at the center of the dispute had been reached "some time ago, when there was a shortage of skilled labor in the construction sector in the UK." Under European Union rules, citizens of member nations have the same right to work throughout the EU.--more--"
Related: Thousands of refinery workers prepare to picket
