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Neither Threats nor Bribes
nor the Rain dampens Polish Workers Resolve to fight on.
Andy
Fenwick Of Unite interviewed Pawel Stopa, the Polish workers’ spokesperson at Siemens
new power station at Uskmouth.
Sacked Polish workers gathered yesterday at the gates at Siemens new power station at
Uskmouth near Newport to meet with representative of the GMB union. The workers
were sacked by management of Durmar Ltd, the lowest link in a chain of
contractors and sub contractors. It is rumoured that the workers have been replaced with other workers by Isocore, an Austrian contractor that sub-contracted the
work to Durmar, who employed workers to lag pipe work on this project. The
workers complaint was that the company was not paying the correct rate for the job
and had not paid the workers money owed for overtime worked, which in total
amounted to approximately £18,000 believed to be owed to each worker for work that they have
done on this project.
What did Durmar management intend to do when, on September 11th, the 20 Polish workers
involved confronted management about the missing money from their payslips? Were they going to
pay up and claim that some administrative error was at fault? Not this
management! They proceeded to put before the men forms, written in English not Polish, that were more than a little confusing. The
forms, if they had been signed, would have meant that the men had waived any right to back pay. When
the men refused to sign, Durmar bosses sacked them on the spot and, as the contractor
had arranged accommodation, management then started to threaten to now evict the
workers, leaving them homeless in a foreign land.
Since
then at meetings, Siemens & Isocore have tried to bribe the workers
with a £2,000 payoff to go back to Poland. But the men want to work and get the
proper rate for the job.
It
was only a year ago that the mass wave of strikes hit major construction sites
all over Britain over the very issue of not undercutting national terms and conditions
by foreign contractors and Siemens at Uskmouth was part of that dispute and the
agreement to end it. Rather than deal with the contractor and force them to pay
up, Siemens want to brush the whole issue under the carpet, hoping that the rest
of the construction workers on site will not take action. But already murmurs
of discontent are bubbling up to the surface with suggestions of an all out
strike being proposed by some groups of workers on the site not only in support
of the Polish workers but in defence of national terms and conditions.
This
action disproves the position adopted last year by Derek Simpson & Tony Woodley of
UNITE with their stance of "British Jobs for British workers." Workers from any land instinctively
know it is the defence of hard won terms and conditions that matters.
But support is needed for these workers. Money and time is running out
and the threat of eviction hangs over them. The situation is getting desperate.
All workers in construction need to come to the aid of these workers.
