Talks to end Lindsey oil refinery dispute
Talks between union officials and contractors at the Lindsey oil refinery are set to take place today.
The ongoing dispute over the firing of around 900 workers at the Lincolnshire-based oil refinery has led to an organised protest by union officials and refinery workers outside the gates of the refinery today.
The workers were fired last week after partaking in a series of wildcat strikes over the loss of 51 jobs. The workers claimed that the refineries owner, Total, had broken an agreement not to make redundancies.
The 51 workers to lose their jobs were employed by a contractor on the site, at the same as they were layed off, another contractor at the refinery was hiring.
General workers union, GMB subsequently revealed that two senior managers at Lindsay Oil Refinery site Richard Rowlands and Ian Elliot instructed a contractor on site, R Blackett and Charlton, to hire 61 new workers although they knew that the original contractor Shaw was about to make 51 workers, doing exactly the same jobs, redundant three days later. GMB claim that Richard Rowlands and Ian Elliot did this deliberately in breach of agreements and accuse them of provoking the unofficial disputes in the engineering construction industry.
The trade unions on the site confronted Richard Rowlands and asked him why Jacobs had not requested that R Blackett and Charlton transfer the 51 Shaw workers across as required by the two agreements referred to above. He replied on the record to the trade union officials that he was not prepared to recommend to R Blackett and Charlton “an unruly workerforce who had taken part in unofficial disputes and who won’t work weekends.”
Tom Hardacre, national officer for Unite, the biggest union in construction, is set to address workers at the Lindsey Oil refinery this morning at the official demonstration.
Unite’s national officer, Tom Hardacre said: “The outrageous sacking of workers at Lindsey is one the most aggressive acts I’ve witnessed as a trade union official. Even some of the employers at Lindsey did not want to issue the letters to the workers but were forced to do so.
“Last week we were attempting to broker a deal to get a resolution to the unofficial dispute but Total have allowed the dispute to escalate without any strategy to resolve the problems.
“Unite is available to join the employers at the table to develop a sensible resolution and we call upon the employers for a positive response.”
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