{"id":5343,"date":"2015-08-25T13:59:06","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T12:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5343"},"modified":"2015-08-25T16:34:30","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:34:30","slug":"culture-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5343","title":{"rendered":"Culture of fear"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Contractors building the energy-from-waste plant at Wilton on Teesside are undercutting pay rates and using \u00e2\u20ac\u0098exploitative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 employment practices say unions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Construction unions Unite, the GMB and Ucatt have called on Sita and Semcorp consortium, which is developing the plant, to intervene.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commenting Unite regional officer Steve Cason said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have suspected all along that the undercutting of pay and the exploitative use of umbrella companies is taking place on the site.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The call follows an onsite visit by the three unions with independent interpreters, which revealed migrant workers being paid barely above the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They are also having to pay employee and employer national insurance contributions because they are employed through umbrella companies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNow we know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true and that a coach and horses is being ridden through national agreements established to maintain standards and ensure workers are paid a fair day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pay for a fair day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u00c2\u0141250m plant will create 50 permanent jobs and up to 300 construction roles at peak.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Race to the bottom<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis race to the bottom and exploitation of workers has got to stop with Sita and Semcorp intervening to ensure people are paid in line with national agreements,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Steve.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wilton was chosen after the Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority (MWDA) struggled to find a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bsuitable site with planning consent\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 locally – and awarded SITA UK the \u00c2\u01411.2bn contract to take the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s household waste.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Safety and welfare are also an issue and exploiting migrant labour is pricing Teessiders out of jobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAs usual the small amount of local labour on site has been paid off and more migrant labour is being brought in, with little attention paid to their safety or their welfare,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Michael Blench GMB regional officer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abusing local community\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSita are a prime example of a company abusing local communities making excessive extortionate profit on the back of their employees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 misery,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Denis Doody, regional secretary for construction union Ucatt’s Northern region, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe employers undertaking this exploitation have no shame or morality. They are just interested in making large profits as quickly as possible.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 49MW site will create enough green electricity to power 63,000 homes, with waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill travelling into Wilton by rail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contractors building the energy-from-waste plant at Wilton on Teesside are undercutting pay rates and using \u00e2\u20ac\u0098exploitative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 employment practices say unions.   Construction unions Unite, the GMB and Ucatt have called on Sita and Semcorp consortium, which is developing the plant, to intervene.   Commenting Unite regional officer Steve Cason said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe have suspected all along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"Contractors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 greed forces workers into misery ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5343"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5344,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5343\/revisions\/5344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}