Foolish Talk Hurts

In the middle of the crisis at the Lindsey Refinery in Lincolnshire, we have the same old stupid arguments from senior Government officials in response to people’s questioning over policy in the last 10 years, particularly with reference to foreign workers in the UK – an issue that many felt would explode in our faces. It has done and the strikes across the country are indicative of a growing feeling of betrayal.

The standard response, used this time by that most experienced of campaigners, Lord Mandelson, is that, ‘These are jobs that British workers do not want to do’.

Context

Where Mandelson is coming from is that many jobs taken up by foreign workers are not wanted buy British workers as they do not pay enough to cover outgoings. This leaves a gap in times of high demand for over-qualified yet willing workers from abroad to take up low level jobs, often for the bare statutory minimum wage and sometimes less.

It is a fact that during the period of ‘Inflation-free growth’ that Brown brags of, there has been a corresponding erosion of household disposable income – the price of growth was simply paid for elsewhere. The by product of increased globalisation which is on balance good is that we have had an influx of foreign low paid workers.

Mandleson was no doubt referring to the general phenomenon that migrant foreign workers will do more menial jobs at a lower wage. But that is not a sign of prosperity and it is not an indication that British people do not want to take those jobs – they simply will not at that those wages. And that isn’t a good thing.

The context is lost in reference to Lindsey and the strikes as clearly these are jobs which British workers very much want to do and there are already contractually agreed wages associated with these jobs. So Mandelson and Brown cannot use the same argument here and it insults the people who are making their voices known – this is clearly not the same.

So I hope Mandelson will get his facts straight before sticking his dodgy nose in the affair in future.

Breaking Rules

Brown et al would argue that under UK and EU Law, Total (the refinery owners) and the contractors in question have not broken any laws. This is true in only some respects and again masks the real issue. Under EU law, any firm can bring in short term workers from any EU country to fulfil a contract so long as it is not a ‘posting’ and in doing so they are only obliged to offer the minimum wage as a lower end. In reality, such jobs are postings with pre-agreed internationally negotiated costs which govern the wages to be paid – and surely was committed as part of a fair tender process or possibly not in this case. This is a flagrant bending of the rules to suit the situation and it deliberately invokes what Mandelson talks of – making the jobs so low paid that British people cannot do them.

This gives this contractor a major price advantage over its competitors who are committed to use local labour to fulfil their foreign contracts. At best it is thoroughly anti-competitive and at worst it is against our national interests to let it go by.

Sign of The Times

It is indeed a sign of the times that such issues now boil to the surface. Some say that in austere times we will see less available jobs and wages will actually rise as a result overall as less low paid workers are kept on as not so many menial tasks are required. The migrants who have come here to do these jobs have grown roots and part of the attraction of Britain over elsewhere in the EU is our generous welfare state.

As more jobs are shed, we will see an ever greater strain on our welfare resources and monies.

It Was Waiting To Happen

This was something just waiting to happen. While growth was ‘apparent’ no one seemed to care about how resources would be consumed or if migrants take low end jobs – again ‘Laissez Faire Government’ which has been another Hallmark of this New Labour Government has dictated that everyone ignores the obvious and then talk their way around it when it occurs.

Well it has occurred and a lot of people, just like predicting the implosion of the housing market, predicted that this would explode in our faces.

And here’s the real danger. As France and other countries have found, immigration, asylum and short term movement to take up jobs are the sorts of issues that cultivate the worst kind of politics – that of racism and fascism. This is precisely the sort of opportunity that parties like BNP need to get some foothold in British politics, particularly when idiots like Mandelson completely miscall the situation and use examples which do not relate but are equally symptomatic of a major underlying problem that will ultimately cause major problems for us all.

On top of all the other things this Government are happy to write blank cheques for , we have the unemployment benefits of displaced British workers and the unemployed low end workers from abroad who have set up their homes here.

This will be one of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s most enduring of legacies that will probably last far longer than the 20 year debt repayment they have signed us all up for.