British trade unions reach deal over foreign workers

London, Feb 4 Demonstrators at an oil refinery in Britain were Wednesday urged to abandon their protest after a deal was reached in marathon talks between trade unions and employers at the plant owned by French energy company Total.

Trade union officials said they had won a pledge from management at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, eastern England, that 100 new jobs would be created for British workers at the plant, the equivalent of 50 percent of the 200 posts under dispute.

Tony Ryan, from the strike committee, told protestors that they had obtained a pledge for the creation of around 100 new jobs for a minimum of nine weeks.

‘We’ve been offered what we went in for, really, which is 50:50,’ he said. Staff at the refinery are to meet union officials Thursday to vote on the proposal.

Under the agreement reached, none of the 200 foreign workers already at the site would lose their jobs or have to return home, reports said.

Earlier Wednesday, British trade union representatives rejected a proposal, brokered by the conciliation service Acas, that would have provided 60 jobs for British workers.

The refinery has been hit by a week of wildcat protests from workers, angry at the import of some 200 construction specialists from Italy and Portugal, employed by Italian firm IREM to build a new de-sulphurization plant at the site.

The unofficial strikes spread to some 20 other sites in Britain at the end of last week.
‘We are pleased that our grievances are beginning to be recognised. There is still some way to go but at least people are beginning to understand what we have been saying,’ said Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union.
However, trade union leaders have stressed that, apart from the localised dispute at the Lindsey refinery, the ‘wider problem’ of European employers bringing in their own workforce on projects had to be addressed.
‘Even if this dispute is settled there is still a major problem about how these foreign companies, who win contracts and come complete with a workforce, are going to create other difficulties,’ said Derek Simpson, leader of the Unite trade union.
He said a concept had to be worked out whereby jobs created by such contracts were open to everyone, British workers and those from other European Union (EU) member countries.

Reporting behind closed doors

Lord Carter's full report will be published later this year Lord Carter's Digital Britain report failed to engage or talk to the British public, says Bill Thompson. It may well be that Stephen Carter is pleased with the generally negative response to the Digital Britain report he has assembled over the last few months, with help from people like psychologist Tanya Byron, Spectator editor Matthew d'Ancona and Channel 4's deputy chairman Barry Cox. After all, this interim report is intended to outline the policy challenges to be addressed in a final set of recommendations and proposals published later in the year, and so its primary purpose might simply be to stir things up and let all of the interested parties know that the issues that matter to them are in the frame. In which case, hearing that universal two megabit per second broadband is pathetically slow compared to other countries, that the idea of a rights agency to negotiate online copyrights shows no understanding of the reality of current download practice, and that the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey, feels that the report shows a 'crushing lack of understanding of the urgency required for changes to merger regulations in the local and regional media sector' might simply reassure Lord Carter that at least everyone is taking notice. The lack of public engagement with the Digital Britain report reflects an approach based around control and secrecy Bill Thompson The widespread coverage has certainly provided a rich source of suggestions, comments, ideas and critical reviews to feed into the next stage of the process. Unfortunately for those who lack access to mainstream media outlets like newspapers and broadcasters or their associated websites, there is no easy way to respond directly to its author. The report website has no information at all on how to make a contribution, and you'll have to read through 72 pages of the report before you find a suggestion that "organisations or individuals interested in joining the discussion should register their interest at digitalbritain@berr.gsi.gov.uk" Apparently the Digital Britain team will follow up these expressions of interest, which is nice of them, and we must just hope that Carter and his expert panel will be carefully reviewing every blog post and online comment to ensure they don't miss anything important. There is no Facebook page to become a fan of - when I searched for Digital Britain the nearest match seemed to be a fan group for fans of the Metallica album Death Magnetic - no associated weblog and no sign of a LordCarter on Twitter, although I have, as a public service, created a 'digitalbritain' Twitter account and will happily pass it over to the first member of the working group who gets in touch. Managing expectations In his defence, Lord Carter's background should not have lead us to expect much. He began his career working in marketing and advertising, areas where messages are carefully controlled. He was managing director of cable company NTL during its darkest days, before he moved to Ofcom. And he did not have explain his views before joining the government, since he was given a peerage rather than going through the tiresome process of being elected to Parliament on our behalf. The lack of public engagement with the Digital Britain report reflects an approach to government based around control and secrecy, one that is similar in many respects to the ways that much commercial software is written, where proprietary code uses hidden interfaces to talk to files that use locked-down formats. Yet, as we have seen with the growing importance of free and open source software, this is not the only way to do things. The GNU/Linux operating system, the Apache web server and the Firefox browser have been written in the open, and the results are as reliable, as secure and as usable as the locked-down programs. How to We may soon be able to compare and contrast the two models, as the open approach is being tried by another part of government and the contrast with the Digital Britain model could not be apparent. READ THE FULL INTERIM REPORT Digital Britain interim report(2MB) Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Download the reader here Last April, Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson set up the Power of Information Task Force, chaired by the former Lib Dem MP Richard Allan. They were asked to "advise and assist the government on delivering benefit to the public from new developments in digital media and the use of citizen- and state-generated information in the UK", and they are almost ready to submit their final report. They've consulted widely over the last few months, posting on their weblog throughout and turning up at conferences, unconferences, barcamps and all the other types of event that populate the geek calendar. Having written a draft version of the report - collaboratively over the internet using a wiki - they put it onto a dedicated website, called it a Beta Release, and invited anyone who is interested two weeks to comment on the proposals. So if you agree that "the ability to discover easily administrative boundaries is essential for democracy" you can go to the relevant section and give them examples to support the case, while if you think it's more important for Ordnance Survey to make money selling our own data back to us, you can argue your case. And you don't need a newspaper column, television programme or major-league website in order to be heard. This, it seems to me, is how digital Brits expect their government to do things in this networked age. Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.

Thatcher was obsessed with publicity, hair-dressing

London, Dec 31 : Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher evoked intense passions during her time in politics, but newly released files reveal that' Iron Lady' was obsessed with publicity and particular about hair-dressing.

Before Thatcher's visit to Iran in 1978, the then foreign secretary David Owen sent a note to the hosts:"Mrs Thatcher has asked if you could arrange for a good local hairdresser before your dinner on 29 April. The hairdresser should bring Carmen rollers."

The files released by National Archives reveal that Thatcher was a politician obsessed with publicity even before she entered Downing Street.

In the files, Thatcher, then leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is shown battling for a more public role in celebrations to mark 50 years since women got the vote in secret files only just made public.

The then prime Minister James Callaghan initially wanted to stop Thatcher speaking alongside him at the opening of an exhibition to mark the date in July 1978. But he was warned against this and told the Conservatives would use it to gain political capital.

"I am sure Mrs. Thatcher's public appearances do as much harm to her party as yours do good to ours," event organiser Lady Alma Birk, a government minister, told Callaghan in a May 1978 letter."If you appear together, the contrast between your reassuring authority and her shrillness would be striking."

Another revelation was about efforts to ensure that Thatcher was not allowed in to sit with Queen Elizabeth II's sister, Princess Margaret, in the royal box at a gala theatre show.

In a briefing note to Callaghan the same month, his principal private secretary Ken Stowe warned Thatcher was going to get"a fair amount of the limelight" as Britain's most famous female politician.

But this could be mitigated by keeping her out of the royal box, Stowe indicated."I think with a mixture of sweet reasonableness and low cunning, we should be able to fix it," he added.

Another official noted on a separate document:"PM says Mrs. T on no account to get into royal box." Thatcher eventually met the queen's sister in an ante-room.