Economising globalisation and identity in applied linguistics in neoliberal times: David Block

Abstract

In February 2009, by which time there was good reason to believe that there was a worldwide economic recession, a group of workers picketed outside the Lindsey oil refinery in north-eastern England. The workers, all British nationals, were protesting against the employment of several hundred Italian and Portuguese workers in an area of high unemployment. The oil refinery in question was owned by Total, an American oil company, which had employed Jacobs, an American engineering company, which then subcontracted to an Italian firm, IREM, which then found it more economical to employ its own labour force, consisting of Italian and Portuguese workers. The latter were EU (European Union) nationals and therefore entitled to work in the UK according to legislation related to the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, which guarantees the free movement of people, goods, services and capital across the geographical borders of EU member states. Thus Total, the company ultimately being protested against, was acting within EU law when it subcontracted to companies that further subcontracted and eventually employed Italian and Portuguese workers and not British workers. In the midst of these protests, the then British Prime Minster Gordon Brown was reminded of a declaration he had made in June 2007 – ‘British jobs for British workers’ – whilst championing, as he always had, neoliberal economic policies which allow, and even encourage, the kinds of activities which Total was engaging in.