Potash jobs – put locals first

York Potash Workers Camp on Stainsacre Lane, Whitby – the real reason why York Potash wants this built.

It’s time for our politicians to look at the real reason behind the proposed portable c abin camp on Sta insacre Lane. It’s time for them to put local people and local jobs first so that Whitby can benefit from the new mine during its construction.

So what is behind the planning application?

The workers’ camp is designed to house 400-500 ‘in-migrant’ workers in twostorey l ow- quality portable cabin style accommodation for a period of six years.

The term ‘ in- migrant’ is used by the expensive consultants brought in to undertake this planning application.

A migrant worker from the EU (including long distance travellers from the UK) can be employed at £5.50 per hour which is a rate below the normal National Minimum Wage as the employer can deduct an amount for accommodation if it is provided by the employer.

If they can get workers at that rate then they will undercut the going rate for labour from, say, Scarborough, Teesside or even Whitby.

The net (after tax) average wage in the UK is £10.45 per hour. The average net wage in Poland is £2.87 per hour and the average net wage in Rumania is £1.62 per hour.

The i n- migrants will be non-UK, EU citizens who will be queuing up at the recruiter’s door to take this work.

The s avi ng t o York Potash in six years will be in the order of £30m – quite a good pay-back for ruining part of Whitby.

York Potash make a great play about the high quality of work needed and hence the need for many hundreds of specialists from around the world.

I am sure that some specialists will be needed, however of the 53 listed job types used in mining only 15 require actual mining experience; the others require minimal onthe-job training.

Eighty per cent of the work is actually manual, blue-coll a r work or t rades re l ate d – so any of you local electricians, plumbers, machinists, mechanics and f i tters who thought you might get a windfall from York Potash, well you can but your charge-out rate needs to be at £5.50 per hour in order to compete with the in-migrant tradespeople from other parts of the EU.

Is the portable cabin camp vital to the go- ahead of the mine? No.

This is a mult i -million pound project which will go ahead anyway.

All it does is allow the labouring contractor, yet to be appointed, to undercut local labour rates and hence lower the overall costs of the construction work and add value to York Potash.

This is simple, no r mal mathematics for big business.

So politicians, it is down to you. Reject the planned portable cabin camp and support local jobs – there might even be votes in it.

Laurie Farmer Broomfields Farm Whitby