Union claims that foreign construction workers had an unfair advantage over their British counterparts — sparking unofficial strike action last month — have been dismissed by the conciliation service Acas.

Thousands of workers took part in wildcat strikes after British workers had been denied the chance to apply for jobs on a contract at the Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire when a subcontractor hired staff from Italy and Portugal.

An independent report by Acas dismissed as inaccurate union claims that the Italian and Portuguese workers did not receive paid tea breaks and had to change into protective gear in their own time.

The Unite and GMB unions asserted, without evidence, that this gave the company at the Total oil refinery an “unfair competitive advantage”. The dispute triggered illegal secondary action at other plants and was used to attack Gordon Brown for his promise in 2007 of British jobs for British workers.

However, the Acas report found that, far from surrendering the tea break, the Italians had asked to add it to their midday lunch break, replicating the traditional continental working model. Overall they would have the same amount of rest time as British workers.

Total’s management insisted that there was no difference between foreign and domestic workers, as all were asked to put on their protective work clothes before clocking on for a shift.

Acas said that it had looked at contracts signed by Total and the Italian subcontractor, which showed that Italian and Portuguese workers were not being paid less than British contractors, as many in the picket lines claimed. The arbitrator had not examined individual payslips because Irem, the Italian company, “were not yet in a position to provide evidence to demonstrate that they were doing this”, the report said. It offered to do so in future.

The report confirmed that Total, a French company, was within its rights under the European Union’s Posted Workers’ Directive to subcontract the building of a sulphurisation facility to an Italian company that used its own permanent Italian workforce. It said that Total had voluntarily agreed to abide by a national agreement between the construction industry and the unions, and there was no evidence to suggest they had broken it.

John Taylor, chief executive of Acas, said: “While the report shows no evidence of the law being broken there is a source of tension around the Posted Workers’ Directive and its application to construction work and the industrial relations system. These issues have been highlighted by the recession.”

Acas welcomed the Government’s announcement of a review into work practices and competitiveness in Britain’s construction workers by the Business Department.

The Conservatives, who have been cautious about picking a fight with the big unions, declined to comment last night. But Peter Luff, the Conservative chairman of the Business Select Committee, said: “If unions scaremonger on the basis of unfounded allegations they will be doing no one any favours.”

Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, suggested yesterday that he would continue to try to change the law, even though Total was found to be abiding voluntarily by all union-negotiated national agreements. “The law wasn’t broken; the law was wrong,” he wrote on the LabourList blog.

Opposing views

“We are part of a single European market but I have always understood the worries that people have. They look round and say, ‘Well, why can’t we do these jobs ourselves? These are jobs that we can do’”
Gordon Brown

“It is not European law that has caused this problem, it has been a way in which contracts have been made, the way in which subcontractors have been recruited”
Lord Mandelson Business Secretary

“At the root of the problem is that European employment law as interpreted by successive UK governments has provided little protections for UK workers from social dumping”
Derek Simpson Unite joint general secretary

“The Lindsey oil refinery situation is unacceptable. I do not believe that those Italian and other workers can be getting the same conditions and rights and pay as the British workers who would have filled those jobs would be entitled to”
Peter Hain former union leader and former Cabinet minister

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