The Lindsey Oil Refinery Strike
Posted on January 31, 2009
A few days ago, Greek workers marched in support of the rights of low-paid migrant workers. In France, workers have marched with banners declaring ni état ni patrons — RÉVOLUTION (neither state nor bosses — REVOLUTION). Their anger was correctly directed at greedy bosses and the response of their governments to the crisis in global capitalism.
In Britain, workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire have turned their anger not on the boss class and casino capitalists who have delivered the country into destitution, but on Portuguese and Italian labourers brought in by the corporation which owns the plant, under the nationalist slogan British Jobs For British Workers.
The slogans workers of all countries, unite! and an injury to one is an injury to all, are not calls for the workers of Britain, or of Germany, or of Thailand to unite against their fellows in other nations, but for the unity of all workers of all countries — regardless of nationality or immigration status — in struggle against the capitalists who oppress and exploit workers the world over.
The striking workers in Lindsey do have legitimate grievances against Total SA and the construction firm IREM — against their exclusion from employment on the refinery construction project, and against the inevitable undercutting of wages and conditions which results from the employment of non-unionised workforces, outwith the protection of labour legislation. However, organising under the slogan British Jobs For British Workers plays into the bosses’ divide and rule strategy of setting workers against each other on the basis of crude national chauvinism and racism, when the common enemy of British and Italian and Portuguese and Bulgarian workers, whether in Lincolnshire, Greece or Malaysia, whether unionised or non-unionised, whether sans-papiers or not, is the boss class. The bosses use fear of unemployment, of not being able to pay the rent and feed their families, to promote division and antagonism between workers, whilst employers enrich themselves with the profits of workers’ labour.
Nationalist agitation by trade unionists is not without precedent. The Aliens Act 1905 was enacted after the TUC demanded controls on Jewish workers, and the TUC also supported the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, which legislated against Black and Asian workers from the former colonies of the Commonwealth. In 1968, dockers and building workers marched in support of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.
Striking workers at Lindsey and their supporters elsewhere in Britain, should be organising on the basis of equality of wages and conditions, and equal representation for all — for jobs and for fair wages, not turning on their fellow workers on the basis of their nationality. The Lindsey workers should spell out to the IREM workers how and why they are being exploited and encourage them to demand equal wages and conditions from their employers. Capital is global and some corporations are bigger than nation-states. More than ever we need international working class solidarity and global unions to fight global capital.
UNITE and the TUC are reportedly worried that the BNP are attempting to ‘hijack’ the Lindsey strike action. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said
Unions are clear that the anger should be directed at employers, not the Italian workers. No doubt some of the more distasteful elements in our towns and cities will try to use the fears of workers to stir up hatred and xenophobia.
But I am confident that union members will direct their anger at the employers who have caused this dispute with their apparent attempt to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff.
Barber’s confidence would be better placed, and BNP thugs would not be sniffing around the periphery of the pickets, if the TUC and UNITE were to repudiate nationalist, racist slogans.
