British Jobs for British Workers are you seeing Descrimination in Spain

You have seen the wildcat strikes in England. We have 3 local sites excluding British Labour Staythorpe Power Station Newark, Lindsey Refinery and Palm Paper all these sites are using european agencies who are excluding British workers, One of them being a Spanish Agency refusing to use English workers living  in Spain. High skilled local people fully certified were meant to be employed as part of the Planning Application but now being excluded.

What are your feelings?

Personally I think you cannot, when your country is part of the EU, state you will only employ people from your own country.

In fact I believe it is part of the conditions of becoming a full member of the EU that your country allows workers from other EU countries to live and work within said countries boarders.

Further, I believe that retreating to behind individual boarders within the EU would be catastrophic, given that the current crisis that EVERY country in the EU, indeed every country in the world, now faces.

Now, in fact never, is the time to do so.

We need greater global integration, and not dissemination, which is what the current 'crisis' in the UK, if left unchecked, could lead to such.

How far are such actions going to lead, will they lead to what was abundant in the 50's and 60's where race was also an issue, indeed what about further back to the early 20^th Century when Women were not allowed to vote, leave alone take jobs from men!

Multiracial, multi-lingual Society is not perfect, but we need to remember one word: Tolerate

Anyway, that's my opinion.

While I agree with most of what you say, Techno, in the case of the UK these companies are actively discriminating against British workers.  Just up the road from me, the contract for the power station at Nottingham has been taken over by a Spanish company who are only employing Spaniards.  Bit harsh on all those fully qualified British workers on the dole in that area.  And one of the ones in Lincolnshire is only hiring Italians and have even brought in a "floatel" to accommodate them, so no good knock on effect with hotels or house rentals in the area, either.

I think this is the crux of the matter.  I can imagine the furore if, for example, British Leyland restarted building cars in Italy and only hired Brits, or a factory was built in Spain by British Steel and refused to  employ Spaniards.  Fair competition is one thing but excluding the national workforce entirely is quite another. 

(The bit about British Leyland was a bit far-fetched, I admit.  They didn't build cars when they had a factory in Birmingham, well......none that anyone wanted to buy, anyway).

Unfortunatly if British workers who contribute to the Uk in Taxes do not work the countries infrastructure will collapse

A lot of EU workers are paid directly to their country of origin for tax purposes and evasion and work for agencies who provide living accomodation food and transport at a minimum cost.

This happens in Lincolnshire in Spalding and Boston areas and the local agencies are cut out for foreign agencies who do not work within the uk agency rules, it is possible for a Polish worker to work for £1 an hour if he/she is self employed because minimum wage rules do not apply.

Pensioners relying on a Uk pension will get nothing if the Uk collapses, this is one of the reasons why the euro is stronger than the pound how many British people in Spain send money back to help keep relatives in Britain.I added this point because this happens with foreigners living in England

This is going to open up a can of worms and exposes the failure of the whole European project. 

The only countries that stick by the letter of the law are the UK and Germany, who coincidentally are two of the few net contributors to the EU budget.  Most countries are not in it for the ideal of unity, they are there for what they can get out of it.  Spain is an example, where they have benefitted massively from EU grants in the past, but quite happily treat foreigners as second class citizens and ignore any rule laid down by the European Parliament which might cause them some inconvenience (land grab for example).  However, many Brits still consider the benefits outweigh the downsides and continue to contribute to the Spanish economy by spending their money there, but don't try to get a job unless a local simply cannot be found to do it.  In all honesty, I cannot say that I find this wrong, Local Jobs for local people (to paraphrase GB) I say is fair and reasonable as long as we don't turn it into a xenophobic witch hunt.

To most employers it is simply a matter of economics.  The average worker in many countries of the EU earn roughly half of the UK worker of similar level, so even by paying the local minimum wage, most foregn nationals get more than they would receive at home, leaving a nice fat profit to the company that employs them, at the same time undercutting British companies.  This is also why UK companies get few European contracts, their labour costs are simply too high.  How do you think that a US company managed to tender for a job and sub it out to an Italian company whilst still making a nice fat profit for both organisations?

I am not sure that the "mob rule" flavour of this latest dispute is much more than the rumblings of discontent with a failed and incompetent Government, the only good thing is that we will get a chance to chuck them out within the next 16 months.

I agree in theory with TecNoApe, but if as Bobaol says, there is positive discrimination, then that must be wrong. I don't think that should be allowed in any country, so if that is the case i'm with the strikers on this one. Bit of a mess though either way.

xertog

some good points raised in your post, and yes, what a can of worms.

I wouldn't hold my breath for a better government here though. I haven't seen anything yet that has convinced me the opposition wont make an even bigger hash of it?

Could they make a bigger hash of it?  In general I don't disagree with the sentiment though, perhaps that's why so many who pay want to get out whilst so many who take want to get in!

xetog

.....and another can of worms, seperating the spongers from the genuine needy?

This is where protectionism is starting. Even Obama in the USA has started that ball rolling. My concern is that if we had to buy British, what could you buy????

Buy British is something that has annoyed me for years. Farmers always harked on about buying British and displayed the stickers in the back of their Mercedes or Daihatsu. Buy British should stand for Made  or Produced in Britain by British Workers.

Unfortunatly the farmers were the first in my area to undercut local labour with foreign workers and now the state through Social security is keeping them workers so well that they will never work again.

Where Companies in the UK employ agencies who soley use foreign labour in the UK,.Surely goes against the spirit of the common market, whereby workers are free to work in any zone. If British workers are being precluded from employment in the UK this is the same as our government saying we will not accept foreign labour here. Our goverment should address this in the european parliament  and ensure all workers are given equal opportunties.

Employers in the UK are tied to using  labour with recognised UK qualifications and also to health and safety legislation. Our government should ensure that foreign companies using foreign labour have to adhere to our national regulations and pay rates. From experience this is something Britsh workers have to do when working abroad within the E.U.

Only when we are all playing on a level playing field can we say that workers are not being discriminated against.