The Kintyre Forum

More than fifteen hundred workers in Scotland, have taken part in wildcat strikes. The problem stems from the hundreds of Italian and Portuguese construction workers, employed by Total - at the £200 million plant at the Lindsey Oil Refinery.
Racism ?
Gordon Brown claims this type of action is indefensible, while Kenny Ward - from the Unite Union to the strikers "Over the last week your heroic actions here have inspired thousands in our county, hundreds of thousands in our country and millions across the globe.

"The fight started here at Lindsey - the fight against discrimination, the fight against victimisation and the fight to put bread on your table for your children.
Protectionism ?

Perhaps Brown and company would take a more serious stand, if we the people - decided to elect Italian members of parliament. Two for the price of one. Bargain basement.

There are more foreign workers playing football in the UK than working at Immingham, Haven't seen any industrial action related to this.

Fair enough - although you don't have three or four hundred Italians - playing for the one team.

This is a two-way street, of course. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet?

Apparently there are over 100,000 Britons working abroad. Should Johnny Foreigner send them home?

Interesting isn't it. Worker pitted against worker - nothing new here. However you can bet your bottom dollar - that the Fascist BNP - will exploit the situation, for all it's worth.

Workers of the World Unite.

I thought from your original post you were anti-foreign labour. I hadn't realised it was the fascist BNP who were stirring this up.

gizmo wrote:I thought from your original post you were anti-foreign labour. I hadn't realised it was the fascist BNP who were stirring this up.

It's not really a question of anti-foreign labour, rather one of anti-cheap labour, this serves only to increase profit and undercut hard fought terms and conditions, by Brit Workers. The BNP will use the foreign element of the problem - to exploit race hatred.
Capitalism is neither in the interest of any worker - regardless of their native origin. The principal objective of the Capital Class, is to make money by profiteering on the backs of poor workers. Look back to the 19th century - where the Scottish miners had organised themselves into forming early trade unions - they where on strike ( for some ridiculously low amount ).
The pit owners exploited the starving Irish immigrants - who where desperate to find some means of feeding their families.
As a result - Irish discrimination, which included catholic discrimination, took hold in Scotland. This tragedy could have been avoided - if these unions had not misappropriated blame, against the Irish - when the real culprits, where the mine owners.
This inherent contradiction in capitalism, can never be resolved to benefit the worker. It reduces the workers bargaining power, to little more than begging ( I will do it for less ).
If it's good enough for the worker to compete - in this undignified scrabble for work - then equally the same said conditions should be applied to MSP's in the Scottish Parliament. If it's all about maximising profit by reducing costs. Perhaps we could find 300 talented Italians, to run our parliament - afteral whats good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Am i wrong in thinking that a member of parliament CAN be "Italian", as long as they are resident in the UK??
In fact i think they can be from any European Union or Commonwealth country or a lowly UK citizen. Am i wrong??

As for the pit owners being to blame for the anti-catholic feeling in Scotland, i look forward to seeing "ionnsaigh, says its the pit owners that started this bigotry, so leave us alone" banners soon at Ibrox

Could it not be viewed that the immigrants are the Irish of this millennium? Was there not an anti-immigrant feeling in the republic a few years ago especially against the Polish.

The fact is, most "foreign" workers only move to a new country to better their and their families lives, just like the Irish did when they had to. A great deal of the immigrants have went "home" now that there is a job shortage. This is evident here in Finland as well.

There will always be someone who will do the job for less than the last person and a business has to make a profit to stay afloat. Not all businesses can get bailed out or help from the government when they are in trouble.

On a news report is saw the other day, the employers stated that the foreign workers would receive the same rate of pay as the workers from this country, although that had yet to be substantiated.
Kx
Actually, I've just heard a spokesperson from Total on the radio say that foreign and British workers would receive exactly the same rate of pay.