Alstom's London HQ to be centre of protest

The victory of the strikers a the Total Lindsey Refinery seems less glorious as time passes. It now appears the result will be some 102 extra jobs, only one-half skilled, for a total of nine weeks. Euronews reports, read here ,the strikers will now concentrate on the Staythorpe power station where there have been problems since September, background here, and that a protest will be held at the Alstom London offices of this French multinational. The following comes from the Euronews report:

Meanwhile, the row over access to contracts by UK employees continues to rage in a separate dispute at a Nottinghamshire power station.

construction workers who claim they are being refused work at the power station will stage a protest outside the London headquarters of Alstom, the company at the centre of the row.

The demonstrators will press Alstom to ensure its sub-contractors, Montpressa and FMM, open up their contracts at the Staythorpe power station near Newark in Nottinghamshire to UK workers.

Unite said 600 jobs will be needed to build the power station's turbine and boiler, while a further 250 workers will be required to build the pipe connecting the two, but the union expressed "serious concerns" that none of these jobs will go to UK workers.

Meanwhile a growing number of backbench MPs are warning that collective agreements in the UK were being undermined by global companies based in Europe.

They are free under law to tender for British building and service contracts and to hire their own direct labour force.