Around 100 workers at ExxonMobil’s Fawley facility, the UK’s largest refinery, are set to go on strike in April and May after they were offered a 2.5 percent pay offer and a lack of company sick pay. Unite, the union that the workers belong to, called the pay offer “pathetic” and said petrol stations and airport fuel supplies would face disruption.
The 100 workers at the Fawley Refinery in Hampshire on the UK’s southern coast are employed by Trant Engineering Limited, Veolia Services and Altrad Services, and make up a third of the contractors that work at the site. The contractors will strike on April 8, April 25, and May 6. Many of the contractors provide safety critical services and strike action could lead to shutdowns, Unite said in a statement on March 29.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Exxon is filthy rich, making vast sums from high energy prices, including £6.25 billion in 2021 alone, yet is colluding with these employers to reduce the workers’ incomes. They have no business whatsoever tabling a pathetic pay offer that is in fact a cut to wages, and absolutely not when RPI inflation is running at 8.2 percent and expected to climb higher.
Unite said that Veolia, Trant and Altrad workers do not receive company sick pay, despite colleagues who are directly employed by Exxon receiving it from day one of their employment.
Unite regional officer Malcolm Bonnett said: “Unite’s Fawley members are utterly determined to win sick pay parity with the rest of the refinery’s workforce and a decent pay rise. Instead of letting the strikes drag on, causing more and more disruption to the refinery’s operations and clients, it is in Exxon’s and the employers’ interests to put forward an offer our members can accept.”
For more information visit www.unitetheunion.org
