British jobs Foreign jobs for British workers

"When I scout a player, I don't look at his passport" is his frequent response to that. But he doesn't have to deal with placard-bearers from the Unite trade union.
Outside the rarefied world of Premiership football, it's much tougher to operate a pure meritocracy – as Wenger's compatriots at French engineering group Alstom are discovering.
The company has won the contracts to build two power stations at Grain, in Kent, and Staythorpe, Nottinghamshire. In doing so, it has become embroiled in a row over foreign workers taking what Unite perceives to be British jobs – just when the recession is already pushing up UK unemployment.

It is easy to sympathise with the local workers, who have seen some of the jobs go to Polish and Spanish employees, shipped in by the sub-contractors that landed the work. But their protectionist tendencies are misplaced – and Alstom is the wrong target.
Alstom, whose skills span high-speed trains and nuclear power plants, employs 5,000 people in Britain, the vast majority of whom are British. On the two power-plant projects alone, two-thirds of the workers are Brits.
The company also takes on 30 British engineering apprentices a year.Just as important, its hands are tied by EU employment laws on the free movement of labour. Under the EU Posted Worker Directive, a sub-contractor that wins a contract abroad is allowed to ship in its own staff to do the work.

The foreign sub-contractors at Grain and Staythorpe have done exactly that, though Alstom has insisted that any extra work is also made available to suitably qualified UK workers. As a result, it says, one of the sub-contractors, Spain's FMM, has taken on 60 British staff.
What Unite has forgotten is that EU employment laws also work in reverse. More than a million Brits work in other EU countries, having landed their jobs on merit.


[SigmaForex Customer Support Area]

Customer satisfaction is number 1

It's a well known fact that no business can exist without satisfied customers, Sigma support you with all your needs that have been chosen according to your demands.
Our slogan is to achieve the maximum level of satisfaction for our customers for that we built customer support which is availble 24/7 to be reached for all clients at any time.

Open Live Chat Now

Email Us

FAQs

Funding Methods

Withdrwal Methods

Trading Agreement