Transcript
EMMA MASSEY:
At a time of economic weakness and when jobs are being cut across the country, UK workers here at Total's oil refinery are frustrated because there are jobs available here in Immingham, just not for them. And that's because an Italian-based company, IREM, has been contracted in to do part of the HDS-3 construction project and it will be using Italian and Portuguese workers, leaving British workers out in the cold. Billy Bones is a contractor at the North Lincolnshire oil refinery and he says workers' livelihoods are being threatened.
BILLY BONES:
This is a classic case, is this industry, of being able to train highly-skilled, competent people but with us being barred from employment by all these foreign companies – which is getting worse and worse, it's getting more and more prevalent throughout the industry – the employment opportunities for us, as adults, and also for the training, is just disappearing.
EMMA MASSEY:
Lindsey Oil Refinery is Britain's third largest. It processes 200,000 barrels of oil a day. That's 10 million tonnes of oil a year. The unions have been told foreign workers have been brought in because they're skilled workers, but the union Unite disputes this and says these contractors are pipefitters, welders and riggers, all construction workers available in the UK.
UNION REPRESENTATIVE:
Our members have worked on these projects throughout their working life and have got the skills and experience better than anybody else, because the British engineering worker is clearly established as the front person within the engineering construction industry throughout the world.
EMMA MASSEY:
There are also concerns that because the overseas workers are bussed in and out of work and live on a barge in Grimsby which acts as a floating hotel, they're not part of the local community. Total has issued a statement which says, "The main contractor, Jacobs, is currently having discussions with workers and union representatives," and hopes "the situation will be resolved as soon as possible."
Elsewhere today, unemployed construction workers have been protesting at a power station near Newark for similar reasons. They claim jobs at Staythorpe Power Station have been going to foreign workers too.
Although today's walkout has not affected the day's normal operations at the refinery, that may be different tomorrow when workers picket the site in further protests. Emma Massey, BBC Look North, in Immingham.