Renfrew Workshop Re-Opening ‘Badly Tainted’ By Doosan Undercutting Of Construction Agreement
Renfrew Workshop Re-Opening ‘Badly Tainted’ By Doosan Undercutting Of Construction Agreement
GMB Scotland has today (Thursday 15 February) said the re-opening of a construction giant’s assembly line in Renfrewshire has been ‘badly tainted’ by it’s move to undercut existing staff through the hiring of agency contractors.
Doosan Babcock has signalled its intention to re-open it’s workshops in Renfrew, creating thirty construction jobs as part of its contract work for the delivery of pipe and steelwork on the MGT energy from waste (EfW) project in Teesside.
However, GMB understands that Doosan has instructed engineering agency firm Matchtec to supply labour for the six month contract, undercutting the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry (NAECI); commonly known as the ‘Blue Book.
The decision also prevents sixty-six redundancy threatened Doosan employees at Grangemouth from applying for the new posts, potentially breaching UK redundancy law in a step-back from previous company policy on re-deployment.
GMB Scotland Organiser Gary Cook said: “This is a very worrying precedence in Doosan’s business model because they have traditionally only hired agency labour during times of high workload - they have never undercut their directly employed labour in this way.
Doosan are not just legally obliged to mitigate redundancies elsewhere by offering staff affected reasonable redeployment opportunities, but there is also a moral obligation to protect livelihoods too because this approach is bad for jobs and bad for the economy.
GMB has been campaigning to expose the scandal of social dumping on construction contracts relating to the EfW sector; this is just one more example of our industry-wide agreements being undercut and it’s skilled local labour that pays the price.
This should be a good news day for Doosan with the creation of badly needed skilled opportunities in Renfrewshire and an opportunity for their own staff elsewhere in their organisation to sustain their employment status - instead its been badly tainted.
Rest assured that GMB will robustly challenge this decision by Doosan and we will use every means at our disposal to ensure our under-threat members in Grangemouth are given every opportunity to continue their employment in Renfrew.”
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Contact: GMB Scotland Organiser Gary Cook on 07712 677594 or Peter Welsh, GMB Scotland Communications, on 07976 447077.
