{"id":24046,"date":"2020-10-02T15:48:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T14:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=24046"},"modified":"2020-10-05T14:37:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T13:37:23","slug":"pm-fails-our-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=24046","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0098PM fails our people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Boris Johnson should swap the rhetoric on UK sovereignty and taking back control for real action, starting with insisting that UK steel is used throughout the construction of the HS2 high-speed railway, Unite said today (October 2)<\/p>\n

Claims by government officials<\/a> that European Union rules prevent them from setting domestic content targets for HS2 are wrong, the union says.<\/p>\n

Article 26 of the European-wide procurement directive can be interpreted, and frequently is by France, Germany and other EU nations, to allow public bodies to award procurement contracts based on \u00e2\u20ac\u0098social value\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to support jobs and to meet environmental ambitions.<\/p>\n

The PM previously pledged to do \u00e2\u20ac\u015babsolutely everything we can\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 so that UK steel manufacturers are \u00e2\u20ac\u015bat the front of the queue for the great projects we are going to construct\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, words Unite describes as meaningless unless he stops hiding his ideological unwillingness to act behind EU rules and ditches the rhetoric for real action.<\/p>\n

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said that procurement from UK companies is the prerequisite for our economy coming out of the deepest recession in 300 years.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Workers will no longer pay price of govt inaction\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

McCluskey commented, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bUK companies and workers rightly expect to be supported by their own government. The prime minister fails our people unless he gets behind a proper plan to save and create jobs. HS2 procurement presents him with the opportunity to prove that UK workers and industries will no longer pay the price of his inaction.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese officials quoted by the FT are wrong,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEU rules don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prevent us or anyone else from setting domestic content targets in support of social and economic value objectives, jobs and communities.\u00c2\u00a0 If Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rhetoric about UK sovereignty and jobs, jobs, jobs is to mean anything beyond the soundbite, it must mean that when his government is spending taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money on UK infrastructure like HS2, we procure steel, construction materials and rolling stock manufactured here.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Taking back control\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turner continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhile we are meant to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0098taking back control\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, government contracts for HS2 have being awarded to overseas companies who are now shamelessly procuring steel and other materials from their own subsidiary companies overseas. \u00c2\u00a0This \u00e2\u20ac\u0098insider dealing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 with our hard earned money must be immediately stopped before it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too late and UK workers are left once again paying the price for Tory failure and a betrayal of UK interests.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe PM’s words are meaningless unless he ditches the rhetoric for real actions and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no better place to finally start batting for Britain, defending UK jobs and our manufacturing industries, than his insisting on UK steel for HS2,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 concluded Turner.<\/p>\n

By Jennie Walsh<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boris Johnson should swap the rhetoric on UK sovereignty and taking back control for real action, starting with insisting that UK steel is used throughout the construction of the HS2 high-speed railway, Unite said today (October 2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[486,1122,160,269,603],"wps_subtitle":"Unite tells Johnson: ditch rhetoric and start batting for UK steel HS2 jobs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24046"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24052,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24046\/revisions\/24052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}