UK workers protest at cheap foreign labour
Today saw a substantial demonstration by 800 workers at the Lindsey oil refinery at North Killingholme in Lincolnshire. It would appear that trouble has been brewing at the refinery for some time with suggestions that UK workers have been excluded from a number of engineering and construction projects in the region. The situation saw emotions running high and the Humberside police were called in to control the protest.
The companies involved are doing nothing wrong under EU regulations which state that they are allowed to bring in foreign labour and effectively ignore the local workforce. Many demonstrators held placards suggesting "British jobs for British workers" which is a repeat of Gordon Brown's recent statement confirming he would protect the UK workforce in this ongoing economic downturn.
While today's protest was fairly uneventful there are suggestions that with the 2012 Olympics on the way and many foreign firms awarded contracts in relation to this, the UK workforce could well suffer at the hands of cheaper foreign labour. This has the potential to cause major problems with UK government at a time when billions upon billions of pounds of taxpayers money is being poured into the economy and foreign workers are being shipped to the UK taking "British jobs for British workers".
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