Union sources say it includes a commitment that the 51 staff who were made redundant would now return to work at the site. The 647 construction workers who were fired by Total for walking out in support will also be reinstated.
"We understand that the contractors and the unions reached a deal last night," said a spokeswoman for Total, who were not represented at the talks. "We hope that the workers will be back on site as soon as possible, and that construction work will be completed on time."
TV news reports mentioned an agreement that workers at other sites sacked for coming out in solidarity will be reinstated. Those reports made no mention of the original 51 redundancy victims.
What I'm asking is, how can an agreement between the unions and contractors at Lindsay be binding on employers elsewhere? It can't, and presumably relies on the goodwill of those employers. There is no goodwill, but there might be a fear of provoking more walkouts.
Just as there is no genuine agreement over workers sacked elsewhere, there is no agreement with Total, who were not involved in the talks and who are the puppetmasters behind the contractors. Perhaps this what the trainborne loudmouth in Stuart Bruce's tweet meant when he said, "If we dress it up as the Jacobs solution, we'll be OK with that." They can ignore an agreement that doesn't involve them.
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