Tea Breaks Helped Lose British Workers Jobs At Lindsey, Report Finds

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/fe...ikes-tea-breaks

British workers' love of a sit down and a cuppa helped ensure they lost their chance of a job to rival Italian and Portuguese workers, a report revealed today.

An inquiry by the conciliation service Acas into the wildcat strikes that followed British workers losing out to European nationals at an oil refinery at Lindsey, North Lincolnshire, has cleared the firms involved of breaking any laws. They are Total, the French oil giant which runs the refinery, US engineering contractor Jacobs Engineering, and Irem, the Italian subcontractor at the centre of the dispute.

Irem was one of seven companies bidding for the work, five of which were based in Britain. The report reveals how unions complained that Irem's proposed shift pattern for the contract did not include paid tea breaks, even though all the British firms bidding for the work were required to include them in the contract.

The report found: "The time of a tea break may seem small but when multiplied by several hundred workers over the period of a contract for several months it can mount up to a considerable saving of time and, therefore, money ... Given that the contract was being awarded on a lump-sum basis of a fixed number of hours in which to complete the job, the above was felt by the unions to give Irem an unfair competitive advantage."

Irem's management said it had offered a longer lunch break instead of the tea break, a move permitted under the terms and conditions set down in a national agreement for the engineering construction industry. Irem's workers were also required to change into work clothing during their own time, another money-saver.

The dispute led to walk-outs from the nuclear site at Sellafield to refineries across England and Scotland. Acas's findings led today to Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, announcing an inquiry into productivity, to the anger of unions. The inquiry will be led by Mark Gibson, who is leaving a senior post within Mandelson's department this month. Mandelson said: "Acas confirms that neither UK nor European law was broken at Lindsey and that European workers were covered by the industry's collective agreement, including the going rates of pay. Such an approach across the industry should avoid disputes in the future ... but my central concern is that British workers should have the skills and productivity to do jobs both at home and across Europe."

Unions yesterday expressed "extreme concern" about the lack of wage transparency and the employment status of the Irem workers. Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, said: "As things now stand, the UK business department, EU commission and European court of justice are a powerful and malevolent political machine, working with employers to cut terms and conditions of the UK construction engineering workforce. They are now meeting serious resistence."

So it was all down to tea breaks?

[Fudge]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/fe...ikes-tea-breaks

So it was all down to tea breaks?

They want tea breaks, I have never heard of such cheek.

Lazy bastards.

[shedfish]

how many tea breaks in a siesta?

[Um_Bongo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/fe...ikes-tea-breaks

So it was all down to tea breaks?

The great worry is, is this a break down of globalisation or a ramp up? Do we need to work our fingers to the bone to bring up our families from now on - while the bankers laugh all the way to the bank with our money? You must admit, the effects of this catastrophe seem to be having a great benefit to a few people.

[SNACR]

Many years ago when I was in PAYE employment I always found tea breaks a waste of time. I'd much rather have gone without and gone home half an hour earlier. It always seemed to be an opportunity for the same group of people to talk at you about their divorce, foreign holiday, what they cooked for tea last night in excruciating detail, their recent mastectomy and anything else under the sub-heading banal.

[Um_Bongo]

Many years ago when I was in PAYE employment I always found tea breaks a waste of time. I'd much rather have gone without and gone home half an hour earlier. It always seemed to be an opportunity for the same group of people to talk at you about their divorce, foreign holiday, what they cooked for tea last night in excruciating detail, their recent mastectomy and anything else under the sub-heading banal.

Life of the party you are aren't ya?

[Fudge]

You can sum the whole purpose of management as

getting workers to do more, for less.

That's it. Thats all you need to know to understand everything they do.

[200p]

LOL

Management will do away with Lunch too if they can

[interestrateripoff]

LOL

Management will do away with Lunch too if they can

Except for them, and if they can they'll wrangle a free lunch that the firm pays for as it's a "working lunch".

[Yorkshire Lad]

I'll bet that all the Europeans contractors who smoked could be regularly seen in the designated smoking areas, and those that didnt went for a passive drag.

[The XYY Man]

This thread is a serious contender for the biggest bull-shit thread of the year, or perhaps even the decade.

British "management" and "government" are the real culprits, and to suggest otherwise is folly of the finest order.

Many industries have given up their traditional hard-won rights such as tea-breaks and the right to pursue industrial action(almost exclusively fought for in the first place by unions or well-meaning philanthropists) in order to meet the challenges of the global market of the 70s/80s/90s/00s etc blah blah blah...

But all those promises of well paid and secure employment forever are, yet again, sounding pretty hollow.

The "no-strike" agreements that were meant to ensure perpetual prosperity to those who signed up to them must seem pretty crass to workers at such plants as Nissan here in the North East who are now facing life on the Nat King Cole.

Sold down the river yet again - when will the British worker EVER learn...???

Sadly, the probable answer is "never"...

XYY

[rolf]

"working class" = bone idle (employed or not)

"middle class" = nearly everyone else

"upper class" = > 1 million GBP inherited wealth

[nelly123]

I'll quote arnold swarchzenaga here (yeah I know but I cant be @rsed checking how its spelt)

Allthough we know him today as governor of the most stupid state on planet earth, and possibly the worst actor ever

He originally made fame as the most sucessfull body builder ever, and he said that breaks from training to recover are as equally as important as the training itself.

This is more Guardian b ulls hit about foreign workers being so willing to work and the English dont want too

Same as that shight about Polish workers doing the jobs English refuse to do.........................

Where are these people who refuse to work? It is all a massive whitewash by the labour party to import cheap labour, and invent lies about English refuseing to work.

Some of them polish birds are pretty filthy looking though

[bootfair]

Am I missing something here.

It says that BRITISH WORKERS HAD TO WORK UNDER DIFFERENT CONDITIONS TO THE OTHERS!!

The Firms were REQUIRED BY THE CONTRACT TO INCLUDE TEA BREAKS..

THen the fact this was adhered to was used as the reason not to offer the contract to BRitish Workers!

They stipulate one thing in the contract, then use that as an excuse NOT to hire the British when it is met.

Offering longer lunch breaks does not fulful the Contract terms the Firms were asked to bid under..

how is that fair, exactly?

Edited February 16, 2009 by bootfair

[stormymonday_2011]

Watching Paxman's program on Victorian culture last night I was interested to see Ford Maddox Browns idealisation of the dignity of labour discussed with reference to the reality of life in the slums and factories of industrial England

Inspired by his example I am thinking of taking up my brush and painting my own series of great works entitled

1. The Banker Pondering His Bonus
   
2. Offshore Workers Protected By Goons At Their Moorings At Grimsby
   
3. Managers Laying Off Staff At Dawn
   
4. Bank Runs, Bailouts And Insolvency
   

Damien Hirst may as well jack it in now.

Edited February 16, 2009 by up2nogood

[Jadoube]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/fe...ikes-tea-breaks

So it was all down to tea breaks?

Fair dos. A tea break, a fag break and some people have taken a half day off, leaving the rest to carry their load.

[Jadoube]

Am I missing something here.

It says that BRITISH WORKERS HAD TO WORK UNDER DIFFERENT CONDITIONS TO THE OTHERS!!

The Firms were REQUIRED BY THE CONTRACT TO INCLUDE TEA BREAKS..

THen the fact this was adhered to was used as the reason not to offer the contract to BRitish Workers!

They stipulate one thing in the contract, then use that as an excuse NOT to hire the British when it is met.

Offering longer lunch breaks does not fulful the Contract terms the Firms were asked to bid under..

how is that fair, exactly?

I think they're saying the British firms were required by their contract with the British workers - not by the contract with Total. Totally fair, the Britsh shot themselves in the foot.

The implication is that foreign workers don't have tea breaks written in to their terms of employment. Based on observing totally unscientific samples I'd say it was accurate that foreign workers don't skive off for tea as much as the British worker.

[Saberu]

The implication is that foreign workers don't have tea breaks written in to their terms of employment. Based on observing totally unscientific samples I'd say it was accurate that foreign workers don't skive off for tea as much as the British worker.

I think the bigger question here is why should tea breaks be looked on with such disdain? If taxes and property laws weren't akin to theft in this country then companies could afford to give them.

Shouldn't the aim of our 'great country' to be nicer to our workers? Rather than trying to dumb our standards down to meet Eastern Europe first, and then Asia second. Labour won't be happy until we are slaves.

Seems to me this is a symptom of a wider problem..too many people and not enough jobs, in other words too many suckers looking for other people to pay their way and not enough value creators (businessmen), partly because of the monopolosation of markets to the point where there isn't much left for the small businessman to do.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Saberu

[Darkman]

Many years ago when I was in PAYE employment I always found tea breaks a waste of time. I'd much rather have gone without and gone home half an hour earlier. It always seemed to be an opportunity for the same group of people to talk at you about their divorce, foreign holiday, what they cooked for tea last night in excruciating detail, their recent mastectomy and anything else under the sub-heading banal.

Amen to that

[eightiesgirly]

Fair dos. A tea break, a fag break and some people have taken a half day off, leaving the rest to carry their load.

Bl00dy hell, they'll be wanting a break between days to sleep next!

[Um_Bongo]

Surely after decades of refinements and automations to working practices that computerisation and robotisations has afforded us we can take a cup of tea every now and again? Shouldn't we be aiming to use our time gained through efficiency for our own happiness rather than for the pocket linings of the global elite?

[Darkman]

Surely after decades of refinements and automations to working practices that computerisation and robotisations has afforded us we can take a cup of tea every now and again?

The opposite is true. Technology has worked us harder, unfortunately.

[darwin]

Watching Paxman's program on Victorian culture last night I was interested to see Ford Maddox Browns idealisation of the dignity of labour discussed with reference to the reality of life in the slums and factories of industrial England

Inspired by his example I am thinking of taking up my brush and painting my own series of great works entitled

1. The Banker Pondering His Bonus

2. Offshore Workers Protected By Goons At Their Moorings At Grimsby

3. Managers Laying Off Staff At Dawn

4. Bank Runs, Bailouts And Insolvency

Damien Hirst may as well jack it in now.

[Dave Spart]

Tea Breaks Helped Lose British Workers Jobs At Lindsey, Report Finds

I'll put the kettle on.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Dave Spart

[Dave Spart]

Tea Breaks Helped Lose British Workers Jobs At Lindsey, Report Finds

I suppose they'll have plenty of time for tea now.