Who put “British jobs for British workers” at the centre of the strike
Comments on socialistresistance.org2000sA comment by Alan in the thread under “For international solidarity between workers: SR on the construction workers strikes” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. In late January 2009 construction workers walked out across Britain after the Italian contractor IREM brought its own workforce to the Lindsey oil refinery. Socialist Resistance's statement on the strikes argued for international solidarity between workers. In the comments Gerry Downing scored it four out of ten: among other things, he wrote, it “does not attack Brown for the initial British jobs for British workers speech”, Gordon Brown's pledge to the 2007 Labour conference. Alan replied to him.
Gerry. A point could have been made in the SR statement about Brown opportunist jingoism, and it would have been entirely valid. But in my opinion it was not Brown's statement which put the slogan "British Jobs for British Workers" at the centre of the strike. It was the issue right from the start when, according to union officials, it was reported that IREM were not prepared to employ British workers. Brown's statement simply gave an added twist to it by implicating new labour.