Statement on the Oil Refinery Protests

I am sure that Plaid members and supporters are concerned with the industrial unrest across Wales and the UK over the past week. I have prepared a statement on behalf of Undeb, our trade union section, explaining our position.

It is inevitable that in the current economic climate, workers will seek to express their grievances through protest. Plaid supports the right to protest and the right to organise in trade unions. We are proud of our growing links with the trade union movement, and have campaigned in the recent past to support industrial action by the fire fighters, local government workers and civil servants. We recognise that the demonstrations and solidarity strikes that have spread across the UK and Ireland are not sanctioned by any union and are in defiance of anti-union laws laid down by Thatcher. Categorically, the protestors are not protesting against the principle of foreign labour being used in Wales or the UK. Rather, the demonstrations are calling for labour to be sourced locally where possible due to the rising unemployment levels. Undeb sympathises with these demands although we do not agree with the slogans that have been used.

The discontent felt among the workers involved in the Oil Refinery dispute is genuine, and action has not been taken lightly. In South Wales a support action involving 50 workers took place at Aberthaw Power Station. The strikes and protests were spontaneous. However, Undeb is concerned that the slogan of ‘British jobs for British workers’ does not represent the best way to resolve this dispute, particularly as the jobs in question are linked to IREM, an Italian company.

Undeb lays the blame for this message at the feet of Gordon Brown. He irresponsibly promoted this slogan at a time when he must have known he could not deliver it. His promotion of ‘Britishness’ has helped create conditions in which non-British workers could be excluded from showing solidarity with other workers in disputes over pay and conditions. Undeb believes the Labour Party has undermined the trade unions by dividing workers against each other on the basis of nationality. In the coming months and years there will be further disputes, and because of Brown’s ‘Britishness’ mantra it will now be difficult to unite workers of varying nationalities even if they are campaigning for the same demands . Plaid has a history of campaigning with every section of the community for social justice and represents the interests of all people in Wales regardless of nationality, origin or ethnicity.

Undeb also believes that the strikes have been misrepresented and workers’ demands inaccurately portrayed. Demonstrators at Aberthaw made it clear that they were not protesting against foreign labour, and that they work alongside Polish staff in a friendly manner every day. We are proud of the internationalism of the people of Wales and support the free movement of people in the EU. We also opposed the anti-trade union laws which mean our workers are far easier to exploit than in other EU member states. We will support any progressive demands for changes at the UK-level or EU-level to Employment or Trade Union legislation that might emerge as a result of these protests, including making sure migrant workers are unionised as the Lindsey Refinery Strike Committee has suggested. Those kinds of demands do not suggest anything near racism or xenophobia.

A deal has now been reached at the refinery where the dispute began. The company has agreed to offer new jobs on the project at UK conditions and rates of pay. No migrant workers will lose their positions. This is a positive outcome but this dispute could surface again in Wales as we have a number of energy-related construction projects planned in the future.

The real basis of this dispute is not nationality but rests with the actions of Gordon Brown and previous Labour and Tory Governments in building a purely market economy rather than a balanced, moral economy.

Leanne Wood AM

Defend Yahya Al-Faifi

Please support the campaign to defend Yahya Al-Faifi.

Yahya Al-Faifi is a trade unionist from Saudi Arabia, where trade unions are illegal. Yahya was persecuted in his homeland for organising trade unions and was forced to flee to Britain in 2004 with some of his family.

Yahya is based in South Wales and has continued his union work with the Communicatioms Workers Union. He has spoken at the Cardiff and Swansea Trades Councils among others to highlight the oppression trade unionists face in Saudi Arabia.

He now faces deportation from the UK. The Home Office has refused the application for refugee status for Yahya, his wife and his children. This is in spite of the fact that political dissidents are regularly jailed, beaten and killed in Saudi Arabia. Yahya has had to leave behind a settled life in Saudi Arabia working for BAE Systems, for the uncertain life of an asylum seeker in the UK. He urgently needs the support of all trade unionists and socialists to stay here.

Please contact your MP and AM and ask them to put pressure on the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP.

Email or write to Jacqui Smith and register your support for Yahya Al-Faifi and his family to stay in the UK: jacqui.smith@homeoffice.gov.uk

or
Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP,
Secretary of State for the Home Department,
3rd Floor, Peel Buildings,
2 Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF

Email the campaign here: defendyahyaalfaifi@googlemail.com

New Labour broken manifesto promises on welfare

Bethan Jenkins posted yesterday supporting TUC calls for a rescue plan for workers in response to the problems in the economy. The TUC are calling for three immediate policy changes; increasing the statutory minimum redundancy pay (as promised in Labour's 2005 election manifesto), greater tax relief on redundancy payments, and a reverse in cuts to front line staff at the DWP who deal with the unemployed, a campaign I have been involved with as chair of the Assembly all-party PCS group. They have also said that the UK Government should abandon their Welfare to Work proposals. These are plans to which Plaid Cymru is leading opposition in Wales, with our Conference wholly rejecting the principles behind this idea.

Today, I have written to James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in response to the Government’s consultation on the proposals. The Government's Green Paper is based on the work of David Freud, a City banker and former FT journalist, who has recommended that the Government pays private partners to take people off the Incapacity Benefits list into work, amongst other ideas.

These partners, known as delivery providers, will be big retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, B&Q and Marks & Spencer, and A4e, a private provider of public services, as well as firms like Ford and Prudential. These huge corporations will get paid £80 a week out of the benefits budget to give people work placements for three months. People will work or train full-time for the same money as they currently get from benefits. That works out about one-fifth of the minimum wage. There'll be no guaranteed jobs at the end of these placements.

There has already been an experiment. Last year we saw the closure of Treforest Remploy because the Government wanted their arms-length company to spend more of their allocated budget on “employment support services”, instead of factory production. This policy saw the York Remploy workers take their grievances to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester this year. Half of the workers at the closed York factory are still out of work.

The Government’s proposals are based on the premise that the unemployed and incapacitated are to blame for not having a job. But the reality to that is that the required number of jobs don’t exist. In the Rhondda for example, there are 8,750 claiming Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Benefit (Feb '08) but only 274 job vacancies (Nov '07) in local job centres.

With a big growth predicted in the numbers of unemployed over the coming months, together with a severe economic recession meaning even fewer job vacancies, forging ahead with these proposals would be economic madness. That’s why I’ve added my name to calls for Purnell to abandon these plans.

You can view my letter to James Purnell here-
http://www.leannewood.plaidcymru.org/uploads/publications/327.pdf

Thanks to Rhydian Fon James from Bontnewydd for all his help.

Jumping off the Gravy Train

Plenty of people here, here, here, here and here have been talking about the proposed pay rise for Assembly Members.

An independent panel has recommended the pay rise as recompense for the increase in AMs responsibilities since the introduction of the Government of Wales Act. Plaid Cymru opposed that pay rise on the basis that Welsh public workers have been forced to accept below inflation pay increases in a year when the Assembly has seen a tight financial settlement.

I am not opposed to renumerating workers for increased responsibilities. Neither am I a supporter of Gordon Brown's regional pay policy which will see Welsh workers on the lowest pay. I have supported various trade union campaigns (e.g this and this) which attempt to address both these issues.

I also accept the view of the independent commission (and the principle of an independent commission looking at politician's pay) that AMs workload has increased. But many Welsh public sector workers have seen increased responsibilities too. In some sectors, its been the lowest paid who have had to absorb the work done by former colleagues as posts have been deleted.

A predicted economic downturn and the need to control inflation mean that the financial situation is challenging for everyone. Assembly Members shouldn't be an exception to this.

I agree that AMs and MPs pay should be equalised as devolution develops. However, any changes should be cost neutral. Any increase in responsibilities for AMs should mean a reduction in the responsibilities of MPs. So increases in our pay should come about after freezing MPs pay. Maybe the way to ensure better treatment for public sector workers in future would be to link politicians' annual pay rises to theirs.