Pay protest – strong as ever

Hundreds of highly skilled construction workers and their supporters gathered at all four entrance gates to the Wilton complex on Teesside to protest at Sita/Sembcorp in their #PayTheRate campaign on July 10.

Members of Unite, GMB and UCATT along with supporters from the Teesside People’s Assembly and TARIF were joined on the protest by four Labour MPs from the area – Anna Turley, Alex Cunningham, Iain Wright and Tom Blenkinsop.

Unite believes it’s outrageous that construction workers should not be paid the correct rates of pay on this new energy from waste project. Protests have been continuing for over two months.

Protesters handed leaflets to motorists entering the site to explain their plight.

A protestor from Liverpool said, “We sympathise with all of those people entering this complex who are held up and are late for work but if we don’t make a stand and fight for equality and fairness then construction workers will end up like the miners, shipyard workers and dockers – extinct.”

Another had worked in construction for over 20 years as an advanced scaffolder and was finding difficulty in obtaining employment in the area. He told me, “We can’t stand by and allow this to happen we are fighting for our future and the future of our young people who want a career in the construction industry.”

The Labour MPs have vowed to meet with Sita/Sembcorp to take up the issues raised by activists and to try and reach a deal that will see the protests brought to an end.

I believe the determination of the construction workers and their supporters, some of who had travelled from other parts of the country was to be applauded.

There has been solidarity from the start of this fight with some people making huge sacrifices to attend the protests that have been going on for weeks and are set to continue until a settlement can be reached.

The clients on Teesside must remember that construction workers will not stand by and allow rates of pay to be undercut.

*Follow the campaign on Twitter #Paytherate