A major row is brewing over the employment of foreign labour at one of Fife’s biggest companies.
The Courier understands that union officials have warned of “industrial unrest” unless the number of local tradesmen working on Tullis Russell’s multi-million-pound biomass plant is increased.
A whisleblower involved in the project claimed very few of the workers set to be involved in the next stage of developing the plant at the Markinch papermaker were from the UK at a time when the national construction industry is in crisis.
That claim was robustly denied by the company running the construction site, which said there were 269 employees on site and 80% of them were from central Scotland.
Ian Marr, deputy project manager with RWE npower renewables, added that many of the contractors hired for the project were based in Fife.
However, The Courier’s source, who asked not to be named, claimed contractors Jacobs and Metso were planning to bring in workers from Finland and Poland to complete the 50MW plant.
He said the move was in breach of a national agreement between industry and the unions which states foreign workers should only be used after the local labour market is exhausted.
The allegation is reminiscent of the situation at the Lindsay Oil Refinery in Humberside two years ago when over 600 workers took wildcat strike action over the employment of Italian and Portuguese staff when British workers were being made redundant. The unofficial strikers were dismissed, which led to wildcat action at refineries across the country.Labour marketThe whistleblower told The Courier, “Most of the workers should be local because they’re supposed to exhaust the local labour market first. We don’t expect them to take on a local painter and decorator to do welding but BiFab is quiet at the moment so there are a lot of men unemployed in the area.
“It doesn’t make economic sense for them to bring people in because they can’t pay them any less per hour than a British worker and they have to fly them home every month for the weekend.”
He added, “Everyone is aware of the current economic situation in the country and the construction industry has been hit very hard. There are lots of engineering and construction workers in the Fife area looking to get employment on this contract.
“I’m not talking about Polish people already living in this country. I’m talking about bringing Polish and Finnish people in when there are perfectly good workers looking for employment here.”
Mr Marr responded that Finnish company Metso was one of the few firms in Europe that could supply the kind of technology needed to burn biomass.Expertise”There is no company in the UK which can do this and Metso will bring in their own people as they see fit,” he said. “It would be more economical for them to use local people if the expertise existed but they have to have the right people for the job.”
Rab Sherry, regional officer with the Unite union which represents construction workers, said, “Unite is appalled that local unemployed construction workers have not been given the chance to apply for work on their doorstep.
“It cannot be right that, in an area of high unemployment, workers who have the skills to do the job should not be given the opportunity to apply for the work. Our national agreement with the employers says that local labour should be allowed to apply for jobs.
“We believe that what has taken place is not in compliance with the spirit of our national agreement.”
Once complete, the biomass plant will supply Tullis Russell’s papermill with heat and electricity and will replace the existing coal-fired power plant.
The Scottish Government has contributed £8.1 million towards the cost of the plant, which should reduce annual carbon emissions by 250,000 tonnes and generate 6% of Scotland’s renewable generation targets.