builders
News and articles about work, policy and workers' struggles in building, construction and materials around the world.
Bahrain: construction workers strike
After a successful 750-strong two-day strike, 1300 workers at another site have also downed tools.
The first strike was by workers at the Almoayyed Contracting Group, workers were protesting at salaries ranging from 60 to 85 Bahrain dinars (£82-116) They initially demanded a rise to between BHD 100 and BHD 120. The head of the group countered that workers were in fact being paid 75 to 150 dinars a month, he also claimed that only 300 workers joined the strike.
Building Worker newsletter - Autumn 2007
Newsletter containing articles on organising site workers ahead of the Olympics, fighting the blacklist in Manchester, pay and holiday pay, a recent strike against racism and the dangers of trusting union officials.
If you want or need help organizing and would like to meet rank and file union members with enough experience of how to help and advise you. Phone UK R&F BWC on 07942 252280. We’ll gladly meet you in a pub or anywhere else you choose after work near your site for a chat.
300-strong wildcat in Milford Haven ends
Workers at South Hook LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) have gone back to work following a 26-hour stoppage in support of a colleague who claims to have suffered from racial abuse on site.
The Western Telegraph reports:
Three hundred men working for Shaw stopped working at 10 am on Thursday, and marched on the offices of main contractors Chicago Bridge and Iron. The men came out in support of fellow worker, Omar Mohamed, who alleges that he has suffered racial harassment from workers from another company sub contracting to CB&I.
UK: Two fatal accidents at construction sites this weekend
A 20-year-old man has been killed on a construction site on Plymouth, just one day after a similar accident took the life of an 18-year-old in Scotland.
In the latest incident, a worker on a Kier Western site at Cattedown Enterprise Centre was hit on the head by a skip or pallet of bricks, according to the Plymouth Herald. It is believed that the man was walking under a telehandler carrying the bricks when the accident happened.
China: Workers in Guangdong attacked for asking to be paid
Construction workers building a dam near Heyuan, were attacked after demanding payment, having gone four months without wages.
Some 300-400 workers at the site, currently building a hydro-electric power station, went on strike last Friday in protest at the massive wage arrears. Some 200 hired thugs then attacked the workers. Lei Mingzhong, is reported to be in a coma and brain dead and acccording to doctors has no chance of recovery. Many other workers were injured in the clashes.
Ricky Tomlinson - imprisoned building union organiser
Born into a working class family in Liverpool in 1939, Ricky Tomlinson was an active building union member and served time in prison for his part in the 1972 strike.
The son of a baker born one month after the start of WW2, life was hard, his family sleeping six people in two rooms.
Mouvement Communiste CPE leaflets for students and building workers
Two leaflets about the CPE employment law. The first from 27 March, by some students in Jussieu to the building workers directly employed by this university in Paris. The second one was distributed in a student General Assembly, a little after the end of the movement.
It is as workers that we are attacked and not as students!
UK building workers to prepare for 2012 Olympics
The Olympics will bring much new construction work to London, and some union activists look to the opportunity for a greater say both in the unions they are members of and in the industry itself.
Building workers met in London on Monday evening 27th Nov to discuss possibilities for union organising during the preparations for the 2012 Olympics.
Members of all four unions associated within the construction industry were present at the meeting called by the newly-formed Building Workers Rank and File Committee.
Construction: Struggle at Laing O’Rourke, Britain, 2004
The following article provides a short summary about a strike of building workers in London in Autumn 2004. Apart from the more or less self-organised character of the struggle, with workers assemblies in parks and blockage of the site entrances, we think that there were two main interesting aspects of the dispute.
1) The fact that eastern European workers got involved. So far capital has more or less managed to use the eastern European countries as a large pool of labour force which could be mobilised for short term projects like large construction projects or the seasonal work in the harvest.
Turner, Pete, 1935-2004
An obituary for British builder, anarchist and asbestos campaigner Pete Turner.
Pete Turner was a South Londoner, who served an apprenticeship as a carpenter, toiled in the building industry for the whole of his working life and died from asbestosis during his retirement. He was a truly sweet man and it was typical, and fitting, that he should have attended Arthur's cremation even though he was wheelchair-bound and breathing via an oxygen cylinder.
