"Unions across the EU have been campaigning for months for a change, after two court judgments, in Sweden and Finland, which interpreted EU law to mean that firms there were permitted to employ workers from the former communist states on the Baltic coast at rates that undercut Scandinavian wages and conditions."
In the face of such absurdity, the claim that strikers are motivated by xenophobia is as insulting as, well, the policies themselves. Here's the rest of the
Independent
piece:By Andy McSmith and Andrew Grice
Monday, 2 February 2009
Independent.co.uk Web
Energy plants around the UK are bracing themselves for another outbreak of wildcat strikes this morning in protest at the employment of foreign workers on construction sites.
Yesterday, ministers appeared divided between those wanting to condemn the illegal strikes, and those who believe the Government should be listening to the workers' complaints, even if they do not condone their actions. The pressure on ministers to act will increase as preparations go ahead for a lobby of Parliament to protest at using Spanish workers to construct a power station at Staythorpe, in Nottinghamshire.
Trade union leaders are walking a delicate line because they cannot organise or condone wildcat strikes, illegal under laws passed in the 1980s, but they want to be seen defending their members who feel threatened by the spectacle of jobs being awarded to foreign contract workers.
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