by René Lavanchy
CONSTRUCTION employers could face nationwide strikes if they do not agree to being audited to ensure fair pay and conditions, the GMB union has warned.
Paul Kenny, the union’s general secretary, will make the demand at next week’s annual meeting between unions and employers to review the national agreement for employing engineering construction workers.
If bosses, represented by the Engineering Construction Industry Association, refuse to agree, a national industrial action ballot is on the table.
It follows six months of wildcat strikes at construction sites, culminating in a walkout at the South Hook gas terminal last week, where contractors have been accused of using foreign labour to undercut British workers, thus violating the agreement.
The national agreement already expects contractors to be independently audited, but Mr Kenny is pressing for this to happen before contracts are awarded.
The union believes that pre-auditing could expose many contractors as unable to pay the nationally agreed rates.
“We may be able to solve individual problems on individual sites, but the systemic problem remains, and will until we get this audit”, a GMB spokesperson said.
Workers at the South Hook site in Milford Haven, South Wales sparked a wave of unofficial strikes across the country last week, when they walked out over the use of 40 Polish workers, whom strikers widely believed were being paid less. The strikes only ended when contractor Hertel announced it was sacking the Polish workers and would employ local labour instead.
In March, two sub-contractors building a power station for Alstom on the Isle of Grain in Kent were revealed to be paying Polish workers 30 per cent less than the national rate after unions translated Polish payslips. Employers were forced to re-issue contracts.
Unions have long complained that European Court judgements and a failure to implement correctly the European Union’s Posted Workers Directive leaves Britain vulnerable to the “social dumping” of cheaper foreign workers, because the national agreement is not enshrined in law.
However, all British and foreign contractors who wish to join the ECIA must sign up to the agreement.
