Strike threat over foreign labour use

Unions in the engineering construction industry have warned that the sector is facing a crisis over unfair foreign competition. They say "widespread industrial unrest" is looming over the use of cheap imported labour on UK sites.

Concern over alleged "social dumping" is expressed in an emergency report to the Department of Trade & Industry by the Amicus union.

The report focuses on a major construction project at Cottam power station in Nottingham. It says UK firms bidding for the job were undercut by £2.1m - a third of the total project value - by the Belgian contractor Vermeeson. The latter is reported to be planning to use Portuguese labour. This has already provoked unofficial site action.

The union says its alarm over the Cottam project has been reinforced by a further case at Mold, in north Wales, where Castle Cement has let work to another Belgian firm, Pirson. Here the client is said to have declined to use the National Agreement for the
Engineering Construction Industry and UK labour on the grounds of price.

The Amicus report claims these developments:
- Represent social dumping which "if unchecked will spread unabated throughout the UK construction sector".
- Run counter to the EU Posted Workers Directive.
- Exploit the foreign labour involved.

The Amicus report says the sector unions have jointly repudiated unofficial action "while completely understanding our members' frustrations".

It warns that unrest at Cottam "has the potential to spread across the entire UK engineering construction sector with sympathy action on other sites already being reported".