Iain Dalton, Socialist Party Yorkshire regional secretary
“Emergency, emergency – save our refinery!” rang out as hundreds of workers gathered at Lindsey Oil Refinery for a rally organised by Unite the Union.
The crisis at Lindsey has escalated in recent weeks, with 125 workers given redundancy notices on 30 September. Hundreds more directly employed and contract workers could face the same fate as early as 31 December, with the knock-on affects hitting even more local jobs.
This follows current proprietor Prax, and its owner Sanjeev Kumar, having their UK assets frozen due to alleged irregularities.
The plant, which supplied 25% of the UK’s diesel, is not operating right now. It has been suggested that decommissioning the plant would require 30 years of remedial works, as well as devastating the local economy.
Unite demands that a new owner is found by the Labour government.
The union has raised concerns that the company overseeing the site and the bidding process, TFI Consulting, is registered at the same location as one of the bidders, Phillips 66, which runs a neighbouring site. The Phillips 66 bid would slash jobs as part of ending refining and making the site an import-only facility.
Another publicised bidder is headed by Swiss financier Marc Amram. This bid has been dubbed a ‘public-private partnership’ which claims to preserve all jobs – but it would be reliant on private equity funding.
But many workers and Unite members already have experience of private equity investors. In the last year, Unite members have fought many battles against companies run down by private equity owners, including Morrisons, VetPartners and Oscar Meyer. Private equity ownership will not provide the job security that Lindsey Oil Refinery workers deserve.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham also raised that if the bids received by the government weren’t good enough, then perhaps the government needed to take a stake in the refinery.
Both Prax and previous owner Total failed to put the necessary investment in to modernise the refinery as they didn’t see sufficient profit in it. Why would another private investor be any different?
The only way to guarantee jobs and to ensure that the revenue generated from the site is reinvested to ensure job security long-term is to bring Lindsey Oil Refinery into public ownership.
The Socialist Party calls for nationalisation of the energy industry, under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation only on the basis of proven need. This should be part of an environmentally sustainable socialist energy plan which could transfer jobs to green energy without loss of pay, terms and conditions.
There was huge anger at the rally against the Labour government. The chant “Keir Starmer’s a wanker” was taken up spontaneously by the workers.
From the platform, Sharon Graham called for environment minister Ed Miliband and employment minister Michael Shanks to resign over their failure to take swift action to defend jobs.
Other speakers said they didn’t trust any politicians – which underlines how important it is that Unite urgently debates its political strategy, including putting forward candidates committed to pro-worker policies and accountable to trade unionists.
Otherwise it leaves a vacuum that can be exploited by other forces masquerading as on the side of the working class but actually hostile to the workers movement.
Reform Greater Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns was stood near the front of the protest. Speakers pointed out that Jenkyns is a former Tory MP who was part of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s governments. She applauded the criticism of the Starmer government – but that was noticeably not the case when Sharon Graham announced that Unite reps at the six refineries across the country were discussing the possibility of strike action to defend jobs.
