"We just want a level playing field"

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Wednesday, 4 February 2009, 17:04

David Smeeton was adamant that this dispute had nothing to do with racism. “We are not against Italian or Spanish workers working over here but we just want a level playing field. We actually want to work alongside them, just as we work in Spain and Italy. But we are not being given the chance.”

This morning I attended a protest at the Staythorpe power station. Over 50 people had gathered at the entrance to the plant to register their anger at the decision of contractors not to consider local people for employment. While much of the recent media attention has been focused on Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, it is here, just outside Newark, that the dispute first kicked off last Autumn.

There was obvious anger amongst the gathered men about their situation, but little of it directed at the European workers on the site. Instead, their anger was directed at the contractors who, they believe, are deliberately not considering hiring local workers.

For Dave and others at the protest this is a problem that has been brewing for some time. They say European workers have been here for a while, often on worse pay and conditions, but this changed over time as they interact with unionised British workers. They say that the decision to refuse to employ any British workers can only be because hiring from abroad is cheaper (ie they are cutting corners on pay and conditions) and/or so they can’t interact with British workers who might be able to unionise them.

As the economy worsens, these disputes are going to become more common. These are difficult issues and a ‘British jobs for British workers’ attitude simply will not do. As I have previously mentioned we live in a complex and intertwined world where foreigners work here and British workers are based overseas. The BNP is trying to exploit the issue with simplistic racist and protectionist slogans. Of course this is nonsense.

Kevin Gough was dismissive of the BNP. “We’re not interested in the BNP. It is not a nationalist issue. We are not going down that road with them. I’ve been told that they’ve turned up here but I will not entertain them. Neither will most of these lads here. It is not a race issue. It is getting this show back on the road and working together in harmony. There are a lot of projects that are going to use European labour and rightly so, but don’t exclude British workers from the table.”

These are difficult issues and often there is no simple solution, but we ignore the anger and fear of these workers at our peril. These are real people struggling with the downturn in a global economy and if we don’t address their concerns then we’ll face the backlash. There is a growing tendency in some quarters to dismiss the protesters as bigoted xenophobes but that certainly wasn’t the impression we encountered today. To dismiss them as such and not answer their concerns would surely lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dave summed up the mood of many of those present. “We were looking forward to this site being built and what we want is a quick solution so we can all get on together, build a project and make it a success for British industry and show Europe that we can work in harmony.”