What is the dispute about ?

It reflects unions’ alarm that work on key infrastructure sites, particularly power stations, is being subcontracted to firms using EU workers. The dispute focuses on a contract to extend diesel refining at a Total-owned refinery in Lincolnshire. The contract to finish the work was awarded in 2006 to a US-based engineering firm with completion due this year. It subcontracted the work to IREM, an Italian company, after a tendering process involving British and continental firms

Have British workers lost their jobs ?

Total has said there will be no direct redundancies because the contract was won by IREM

Why were the jobs given to EU workers?

We do not know because the contract is confidential. It is believed that the firm wanted to use the foreign workers because they have a very specific skill in the oil-refining business

Have the trades unions and British workers a legal case for challenging the recruitment of foreign workers ?

No. A basic principle enshrined in EU law is that Britain accepts the rights of nationals from any other member state automatically to live and work in Britain. This was agreed when Britain joined the Common Market, as the EU was then known, in 1973

Do the Italian and Portuguese workers have the same protection as British workers ?

The Government said that IREM is operating under regulations laid down in the EU Posting of Workers Directive. That was created in 1996 to encourage the movement of skills around the EU and to protect workers. It allows an EU firm to employ its own staff on a temporary project in another EU state. The conditions are that the contract is of limited duration and that the employer abides by local employment regulations. About 1 million people are now working under the directive

Are the workers being paid the same as existing workers ?

Total said that all 400 IREM staff have the same pay and working conditions agreed as the existing contractor workforce. The unions say there is unemployed skilled labour available locally to do the jobs. But the company says it prefers to use its own experienced and settled labour force

Will this type of hostility towards foreign workers spread as the recession deepens?

It seems likely, given the need to modernise and replace power stations. Construction projects for the 2012 Olympics could prove to be further flashpoints

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