A deal to end the bitter jobs dispute at the Total-run Lindsey oil refinery, which has led to walkouts across the country, has been agreed, unions say.

Contract workers at the oil refinery walked out over job losses

Unions said the deal involved the reinstatement of 647 workers sacked for taking unofficial strike action and would be put to the workers on Monday.

The workers went on strike on 11 June after a sub-contractor cut 51 jobs.

It is thought those workers will also be offered jobs.

'Hours of negotiations'

The dispute sparked wildcat sympathy walkouts involving thousands of workers at power stations and oil and gas facilities across the country.

Les Bayliss, of the Unite union, said: "Following hours of detailed negotiations we now have proposals for a return to work which will be recommended by the stewards to the workforce.

"The employers have agreed to reinstate the sacked workers but the details have to be put to the workforce first."

Another union, the GMB, has recommended workers accept the deal and end the dispute.

The negotiations were adjourned after five hours in London on Tuesday and resumed in Manchester on Thursday afternoon.

Total was involved in the talks after previously refusing to take part.

Headquarters demo

Other sites affected by industrial included Longannet in Fife, Sellafield in Cumbria, Drax and Eggborough in North Yorkshire, Stanlow in Cheshire, Aberthaw in south Wales and Didcot in Oxfordshire.

On Friday morning, staff at Sellafield and Longannet returned to work.

The sacked Lindsey workers had been planning to stage a demonstration outside the Paris headquarters of Total next week.

They had been employed on a project known as HDS-3 to build a new site alongside the existing Lindsey plant.

Total fears the dispute has set the project back by months and that as a result it will cost an extra 100 million euros (£85m).

It has not yet commented on the outcome of the talks.

See also:

Lindsey refinery dispute settled

Financial Times: June 26 2009
By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

A deal has been reached to end the dispute at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, which has sparked wildcat strikes at power stations and petrochemical sites across the country.

The agreement thrashed out between union leaders and employers of contract staff will be put to a mass meeting at the site on Monday.

Unions said the deal involved reinstatement of 647 workers at the refinery sacked for taking unofficial action in protest at a subcontractor’s plan to make 51 employees redundant. It is believed the 51 will also be offered jobs as part of the agreement.

Unions also appear to have won assurances that thousands of workers at other sites who took sympathy action will not be victimised.

Les Bayliss of Unite said: “Following hours of detailed negotiations, we now have proposals for a return to work that the unions will put to the members at Lindsey. Employers have agreed reinstatement of sacked workers. The details will be put to the workforce on Monday morning.’’

The GMB union said workers would be recommended to accept the deal and call off the unofficial strike.

Total said it was “pleased that the contract companies and the unions were able to reach a positive conclusion at the talks. We expect this means that the contractors will be able to get back to work as soon as possible and get the project completed on time with no further disruption and additional costs.”

The French group had said on Tuesday that although production had not been affected at the refinery, which produces about 223,000 barrels of crude oil per day, delays and stoppages on construction had cost it €100m (£85m).

Up to 1,200 Lindsey workers involved in building a £200m hydro-desuplhurisation plant have been on strike since June 11.

The engineering construction industry still faces the threat of a national strike ballot by up to 20,000 workers for official industrial action over jobs, pay and conditions.

The unions want an agreement that local workers will have priority for jobs, followed by other UK workers, with foreign staff only brought in if there are shortages.

At its peak the industry employs up to 30,000, but about 25-30 per cent are currently without work because large projects have dried up.

Like so many rail systems, the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway was neglected for years in favour of road transport, but the loss of its main ports when Eritrea gained independence left Ethiopia totally dependent on Djibouti for an outlet to the sea.

This passenger may face a long wait for the next train

The country needed the railway more than ever, but the line was in no fit state for intensive use.

The system is narrow, one metre gauge, with steep gradients on the long haul up from sea level to the Ethiopian highlands.

Some stretches of track are more than a century old; crumbling embankments and decaying bridges limit the weight and speed of the trains.

Recently it has been averaging one derailment a week, and attracting so little traffic that for a time staff frequently went unpaid.

But now, with European Union support, a major restoration project is under way.

Spectacular scenery

Almost a third of the track is being re-laid, using heavier weight rails - 40kg per metre instead of the 20kg rails still in use on some stretches of the line.

The section from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa has been closed while the work is going on.

The railway to nowhere?

A spectacular stretch of line, near the town of Metahara, where the track runs on a narrow causeway across a volcanic lake, has already been completed.

Workers are strengthening bridges, consolidating embankments, and casting 25,000 concrete sleepers to replace the lightweight metal sleepers which were there before.

Meanwhile, a little desultory traffic still runs on the lower stretch of the line from Dire Dawa to Djibouti - a trainload of fruit and vegetables once a week for sale in Djibouti, coffee for export, trainloads of live camels destined for the meat markets of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

Coming the other way are all the construction materials needed for the project itself.

When the work is finished, in perhaps 18 months time, the system will still be narrow gauge, but much safer and more robust, able to take heavier trains at faster speeds.

'Pro-poor'

The railway's general manager, To'om Terie, who now sits in his comfortable office in Addis Ababa above a silent, deserted station, says he expects a volume of something like 10 trains a day and a comfortable operating profit.
map

Mr To'om, who has worked for the railway for more than 30 years, is happy about the prospects for his own railway, but excited too that national policy now officially embraces rail transport.

The government is starting to plan a completely new rail system, with a further 5,000 km (3,100 miles) of lines.

It is early days yet, and Ethiopia is still looking for partners to build such a network.

But the man in charge of the project, Getachew Betru, confirmed that this would be a standard gauge railway, electrified to take advantage of the abundant, cheap electricity expected to be produced by ambitious new hydro-electric schemes soon to come into operation.

It would be primarily designed to carry freight, and although the proposed routes are still confidential, it might - for instance - serve the coffee-producing areas of western Ethiopia, the light industries of the north, the commercial food producing areas south of Addis Ababa, and the fertile, but as yet undeveloped farmlands near the Sudan border.

Sign in Amharic and French - the French influence is still strong

Mr Getachew talks with enthusiasm about rail transport as the engine of development, and of his conviction that railways are inherently more "pro-poor" than any other transport system - of much more use to Ethiopia's rural dwellers than an expensive network of tarmac road, driven on mostly by tourists and aid workers.

At the moment the new network is still a dream, but given Ethiopia's dramatically-rugged terrain, if it does get built, then it will surely be one of the outstanding railway engineering feats of the 21st Century.

Boris Johnson calls him demented, the Sun blockaded his home and many Londoners cursed his tube strike, but Bob Crow is in no mood to compromise his communist ideals - even the dog's called Castro

Bob Crow general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. Photograph: Martin Godwin

Crow has stopped at a cartoon that appeared in the London Evening Standard, and shows a tube map drawn along new lines. "Absolute classic, this one. Look, you got the Militant Line, the Far Left Line, Bolshy Line, Greedy Fat Bastards Line, the Blackmail Line. Hahahaha! Brilliant!"

In a week when BA employees were asked to work for nothing and 900 workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire were sacked for unofficial strike action, Crow looms larger than ever - as Scargill redux, an old-fashioned trade union tyrant, or a workers' hero, depending on your perspective, and how keen you are to get into work on time.

Last week Crow almost brought London to a stop. Again. Two days' strike action cost the economy an estimated £100m. London's mayor, Boris Johnson, called him "demented" and throughout his tenure has refused to talk to him. The Sun newspaper sent a red double-decker bus round to his house to block his way to work, and give the public the chance to berate him. His enemies say he is a bully who regularly holds London to ransom. So do some of his friends.

Crow's RMT is widely regarded as a militant sore. No wonder. His successes are undeniable - in the seven years he has led the union, membership has increased (from 50,000 to over 80,000) almost as fast as workers' salaries. He even managed to get Network Rail to reintroduce a final salary pension scheme.

This week he's been in talks with the tube bosses. Next week he'll be in intensive talks. Yes, of course, he hopes to reach a settlement. No, of course, he's not ruling out further action. He insists that the dispute has been misreported. The RMT did not demand 5% - its claim was for "inflation plus" when inflation was 4%. The dispute is primarily about protecting a no-compulsory redundancy scheme; Crow believes 4,000 of the tube's 22,000 jobs are at risk.

What would he say if his members were asked to work for nothing? "Am I allowed to swear? I'd tell them to fuck off. Over the last two years, BA made around £900m profit one year and £500m the other. It's an absolute scandal."

To an extent Crow is a victim of his own success. The public seems to have little support for tube workers because they think they are already well rewarded. Is it true that drivers earn a basic £40,000? He looks at me, wide-eyed, as if he can't quite believe the question. "Yeah! But we've got people on far more than that. Technical officers and signal workers are on £54,000. Basic. For a flat week. All pensionable."

Blimey, I say. He gives me another look. "When I see Ronaldo earns half a million quid a month and he gets a signing on fee of £8m, and people say train drivers are greedy working nine hours downstairs in them kind of temperatures all day long. Nah. I think it's the rate for the job. The reality is it's a jungle out there."

Crow, who earns £80,000, is sitting in his huge leather armchair. If the Sopranos was remade in Britain you could do worse than cast him as Tony - shaved bullet head, huge arms, the hard man's splayed legs, a scarily soft handshake. Around his neck he wears a golden pair of boxing gloves. His summer shirt is loose and baggy, his trousers casual, and his sneakers carefully colour co-ordinated - a distinctive kind of dapper. Somehow you know he's going to be a Millwall football fan.

Crow is a keen sportsman. He works out six days a week, and still plays five-a-side. When I ask who his sporting hero is, he instantly points to a framed picture of Millwall legend Terry Hurlock. "He's a friend of mine. Absolute hero. He was a very, very hard player, but a very, very intelligent player." As a footballer, has Crow got more of Hurlock's hardness or intelligence? "Oh, his hardness. Imagine a stick of rock, and it says 'Blackpool for ever', well he had Millwall right the way through him." Cut Crow in half and you'd probably find "No Surrender".

When England played Andorra last week the tubes were on strike. One banner at Wembley read "Bob Crow is a ******". Did he see it? "Oh yeah, it had six digits in it. Someone said to me it meant Bob crow is Golden." He grins. "I understand that Fabio Capello wrote a letter to the bus workers, praising them for the extra workers they put on for the strike. I had a lot of time for Fab until then, but he actually supported strike breakers so he's not one of my favourites no more. I shall remind the Italian trade union movement when I meet them of what he done."

What's it like to be known as the most hated man in London? Crow, normally a motormouth, pauses. "Well, number one, if anybody says it is nice to be known as hated, they're lying." He pauses again. "But I'm not hated. They're lying. I'm not the most hated. I tell you what, I've been travelling around on the trains, and I don't get no aggro at all."

Perhaps people are scared of you? "No, people actually come up to me and say, 'Why are the trains running late Bob,' and I say to them 'I'm not responsible for running the trains. I wish I was, but I'm not.'"

The Times ran an editorial stating that Crow was class obsessed, and he says for once it was correct. "Yeah, spot on. Dead right they was on that. I am obsessed with workers. I'm not obsessed with bosses - I don't represent them."

Crow, 48, was born in Shadwell, east London, and his family moved to Hainault on the London/Essex border when he was an infant. His father was a docker; trade unionism was the norm in his family. He left school at 16, working for London Underground as a track repairer. A spat with his gang leader at 19 politicised him. He felt he was being picked on, went to his branch meeting to complain, and that was that. He joined the branch committee, was sent to trade union school to swot up, and fell in love with the movement. In 1983 he became local representative of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and began a four-year fling with the Communist party. In 1990 the NUR merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the RMT, and in 2002 he was elected by the membership to succeed Jimmy Knapp as general secretary. He says he adores his job.

Even when the mayor of London calls him demented? He laughs, and tells me he was recently interviewed on Channel 4 news and Johnson was on a video link-up - when the mayor was told Crow was in the studio he said it was a set-up, and left. "He walked away with all these wires hanging from him. He looked like Frankenstein! Hahahaha!"

Ken Livingstone claims that the current dispute would not have happened if he was still mayor. Crow says it's true that Livingstone did support the RMT's no-compulsory deal, but he thinks the former mayor's memory is rose-tinted. After all, it's not long since the two fell out publicly. "He told people to cross picket lines. Maybe the job had gone to his head, and he thought, I'm mayor and I've got to give my principles up."

How did he feel when Livingstone accused him of running a protection racket in 2007? He looks surprised. "I never heard that. I heard him say we were acting like gangsters." Would he prefer to be protection racketeer or gangster? "That's a good one, innit. Would you rather be hanged or stabbed to death? No, none of them really. What we want to be known as is a trade union that's trying to defend its members. Every time we've taken action we've had a ballot and respected our members wishes."

Crow's politics are fascinating. He is an internationalist who recently stood in the European elections on an anti-EU ticket as part of a trade union coalition. As far as he's concerned, the EU is a capitalist conspiracy to bring wage rates down. Does that mean at heart he is a little Englander? Christ no, he says. He doesn't care where his workers come from so long as they're being paid a fair rate. "People think we're wrapping ourselves up in the union jack, but I have got more in common with a Chinese labourer than I have with Sir Fred Goodwin. I'm anti-EU, but I'm pro-European. Real European support for me means when French dockers take action in Calais, we back it."

Does he agree with the Gordon Brown line, "British Jobs for British workers"? "No. And it didn't work did it? The vote collapsed. Labour's vote collapsed in the election, and it was all built up with scapegoat-ism. British jobs for British workers is just bullshit. Absolute bullshit."

The night Labour won the general election in 1997, he drank a can of beer every time a member of the Tory cabinet lost a seat. How much did he drink that night? "Quite a lot. Nobody cheered more than me that night." What is the Labour legacy 12 years on? "It's left us with the BNP, that's what it's left us with."

But Crow has never been a pessimist. He believes that now is the time for the big battle of ideas, and the left is on the march again. It doesn't feel like that, I protest - bankers are bailed out by the government, while the rest of us suffer. Ach, that's just capital's dance of death, he says. "Joe Slovo, the great South African communist leader, said the Soviet Union may have failed with communism, but capitalism has failed mankind. I think that's what it's all about. People are going to say this system ain't working, it's not providing me with jobs, it's not providing me with homes, it's breaking down socially, it leads to wars."

I ask him why nothing seems to scare him. He reaches into a cupboard and brings out his father's war record. "Three medals he got. He was a PE instructor in the army. He went all over the world. He was unemployed in 1939, God's honest truth, and war broke out and my dad said to my grandad, 'I'm not signing up for the army, Hitler can come over here as far as I'm concerned, I ain't got a job, I ain't got a house, why should I fight for this country, I've got nothing to fight for,' and my granddad, who was a Fusilier, said: 'You're going in the army,' took him down, and signed him up. He didn't want to come out in the end. He loved it.

"The war changed people. My dad told me when they came back from the war they were going to have what they didn't have before. They weren't frightened no more. These people had just fought fascism and beat it. A miner from Wales had just built a national health service! A miner! So I ain't frightened of these people now. Someone puts up a sign at a football match about Bob Crow, they don't frighten me. From a bankrupt country they rebuilt Britain after a war and you're telling me these people now are going to put up with 3.5 million to 4 million people on the dole with no prospects. These kids aren't going to have it."

Crow lives in Essex with his partner Nicola Hoarau who runs the RMT's credit union - there were accusations of cronyims when she was appointed, but Crow says it was all kosher, and she was the only applicant. Between them, they have four children and assorted animals. "The dog is called Castro. The cat is Candy. I couldn't get away with naming it after a political hero, and the fish has got no name. Goldfish, won it at a circus, 17 years of age." A 17-year-old goldfish? "Yeah, I won it by throwing a dart at a board." If you told your members you had a 17-year-old goldfish, they'd never believe another word you said, I say. He laughs. "It's true. Totally true. Unbelievable fish he is. Incredible little fish. Fish with no name."

Does he still think of himself as a communist? "Oh yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Communist stroke socialist, yeah." How would he define that? "I'd say it was based on a society of people's needs. For example, I still can't understand how in a world that produces enough food to feed the world twice over every day, a third of the world is going to bed hungry every night. How can capitalism be working? I can't accept that 50% of the world are working for $2 a day and I can't accept that 10% of workers are working for a dollar a day."

Would it scare his members to know their leader was a communist. "Nah," he says with utter certainty. "If I were a worker and my trade union leader was a communist and he was getting me good pay rises, bring on more communists."

Spot the ball competition

Can you find, in this corner of Bob's office, the following objects: two footballs (one signed by Millwall when they were promoted); a clock from the maritime union in Australia; a fax machine; a photo of his daughter Tanya; a cartoon of Crow as the Voice of Reason, surrounded by busts of Marx, Lenin and Mammon; framed Lenin with a red flag given by the Japan Railway Workers union; 1920 railway branch official sashes made with gold braid; antlers of a Canadian moose shot by a railway worker as a gift for Crow; an iron statue of a locomotive front that used to be on the front gates of Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants - found in skip; a bureau belonging to Havelock Wilson, first general secretary of the National Union of Seamen; flags from the Swedish Railway Workers union and the Norwegian Oil Workers union; a mug from German Railway Workers union, watches from Swiss Railway Workers union and Chinese railway workers with picture of Mao; a brick from the house of Jim Connell composer of The Red Flag; a ticket from a Millwall v Crewe match in which Neil Harris broke Millwall's goal-scoring record, and much, much more?

Calls for a joint public inquiry into the Potters Bar and Grayrigg fatal train crashes have been rejected by the transport secretary.

Both the Potters Bar crash, in which seven people were killed on May 10, 2002, and Grayrigg, in which one person died on February 23, 2007, involved trains derailing at high speed after hitting faulty sets of points.

The coroner in the Potters Bar inquest adjourned the case shortly after the Grayrigg crash, saying it might produce fresh evidence for Potters Bar and lead the transport secretary to reconsider his previous rejection of a public inquiry. Lord Adonis's decision drew criticism from several quarters, including the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union.

"Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, said: "It's scandalous that it's taken years of campaigning to get a confirmation of full inquests...... and the RMT will be holding the government to their word and demanding that they fix the earliest possible date for the inquests to begin. We have consistently called for a joint public inquiry into Potters Bar and Grayrigg which includes an examination of the safety impact of the privatisation and fragmentation of the rail industry."

See also:

Anger at rail inquests decision

BBC News: 19 June 2009

A woman was killed when a Pendolino derailed at at Grayrigg, Cumbria

Families whose relatives were killed or injured in the Potters Bar and Grayrigg rail crashes say holding separate inquests is "intensely disappointing".

The government has ruled out holding a joint public inquiry into the crashes.

Seven people died and more than 70 were injured at Potters Bar in 2002. One woman was killed and 82 hurt at Grayrigg in 2007.

Lawyer Louise Christian said victims had been "ignored" and the government ruling may be taken to judicial review.

Relatives of the victims had been calling for joint public inquiry.

Ms Christian said the the "very long delay of two-and-a-half years by the government in making this decision has also contributed to the victims' suspicions that the government has never intended to take them seriously".

It's scandalous that it's taken years of campaigning to get a confirmation of full inquests" - Bob Crow, RMT general secretary

The Department for Transport (DfT) said the Secretary of State Lord Adonis had decided "that two independent inquests will ensure complete public scrutiny of the Potters Bar and Grayrigg accidents".

The DfT said he believed the two inquests "will ensure that lessons are learned and acted upon and as such are as effective as a public inquiry".

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, said: "It's scandalous that it's taken years of campaigning to get a confirmation of full inquests... and the RMT will be holding the government to their word and demanding that they fix the earliest possible date for the inquests to begin.

"We have consistently called for a joint public inquiry into Potters Bar and Grayrigg which includes an examination of the safety impact of the privatisation and fragmentation of the rail industry."

Points failure

The Potters Bar accident happened when a West Anglia Great Northern train travelling from London to King's Lynn in Norfolk was derailed as it went over faulty points.

Six passengers died and a pedestrian was killed when debris fell on to the road beneath the track.

An accident report by the Health and Safety Executive in May 2003 blamed poor maintenance for the points failure, with earlier inspections not spotting defects in the points.

In October 2005, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had advised British Transport Police that there was no realistic prospect of conviction for an offence of gross negligence manslaughter against any individual or corporation.

An initial report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) in the Grayrigg crash blamed a faulty set of points.

A later inquiry by Network Rail, released in September last year, found systematic failures in track patrolling and management.

BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds said the hearings will be "Middleton" inquests.

This type of hearing investigates the broader circumstances of a death or deaths, as well as the immediate causes.

A Network Rail spokesperson said: "The tragedy at Grayrigg was caused by the failure of our infrastructure, something we were devastated to discover.

"Following a comprehensive and detailed industry investigation we made immediate changes to our maintenance regime.

"Today's announcement about Grayrigg and the earlier incident at Potters Bar - which occurred when Railtrack was responsible for the infrastructure - will hopefully give greater reassurance to everyone involved that lessons have been learned and changes made."

See also:

Adonis: No public inquiry for Grayrigg or Potters Bar rail disasters

New Civil Engineer: 19 June, 2009
By Alexandra Wynne, Mark Hansford

Transport secretary Lord Adonis today rejected calls for a public inquiry into the rail accidents at Grayrigg and Potters Bar, that both resulted in deaths of passengers.

The RMT rail union said the news was a “scandal”.

Adonis told the House of Commons that coroner inquests would allow “appropriate further investigations of the accidents”, negating the need for public investigation.

“I would like to inform the House that following careful consideration, including those representations made by affected parties, I have decided that the public interest is best served by the continuation of the two inquests that have begun into the deaths resulting from the rail accidents at Potters Bar and at Grayrigg. I have therefore decided not to convene a public inquiry into the accidents, either individually or jointly,” Adonis said.

He added that he was satisfied that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) investigation into the Grayrigg accident was “thorough” but would make further funds available to the Coroner for South and East Cumbria for further investigation work if required.

The Potters Bar accident will be the subject of an “enhanced inquest”.

Adonis added: “In October 2008, the rail safety regulator Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) assured the then secretary of state that no further immediate actions to ensure the safety of passengers and staff were necessary as a result of RAIB’s final report into Grayrigg, beyond those that had already been taken.”

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said the decision was a scandal.

“The RMT has consistently called for a full public inquiry into Potters Bar and Grayrigg that looks at all the issues surrounding these disasters including the role played by the privatisation and fragmentation of the rail network.
The inquest announcement is welcome but is not an alternative to a full public inquiry and it’s a scandal that the government have specifically ruled that out.”

“RMT has also warned repeatedly that the decision by Network Rail to defer nearly a third of its track renewals as it seeks to hit financial targets creates the conditions for another serious derailment. There is a real danger of another Hatfield, Potters Bar or Grayrigg and the Government should intervene to reinstate the full renewals programme before we have another disaster on our hands, he said.

Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers said the decision was “unacceptable”.

“This is a real blow for the families of those who died in these terrible crashes. It is unacceptable for the Government to have left those campaigning tirelessly for a Potters Bar inquiry hanging on for seven years. The delay has only served to increase the distress to those who were injured or lost loved ones as a result of the crash.”

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch investigation into the Grayrigg crash which killed one and injured 22 on 23 February 2007 blamed Network Rail’s failure to correctly set up points and carry out a track inspection.

The findings concluded that the immediate cause of the derailment, which caused the death of passenger Margaret Masson, was the deterioration of Lambrigg 2B points through a combination of failures of three stretcher bars, the lock stretcher bar, and their fastenings.

It went on to say three factors – the mechanical failure of a bolted joint, the incorrect set up of the points and a track inspection that was missed five days before the accident – were to blame for causing these unsafe conditions.

Points failure caused by poor maintenance was also to blame for the May 2002 Potters Bar disaster, where seven were killed and another 70 injured.

The Health & Safety Executive led the investigation into the crash and published a report into its findings in May 2003.

The report concluded that there were gaps in the maintenance schedule for this set of points and that the main nut, lock nut and insulating bush were absent from the right-hand end of the rear stretcher bar that failed.

The managing director of a Norfolk recruitment agency escaped the full force of the law last night after she fleeced casual workers out of more than £11,000.

One of them had been left £2,500 out of pocket.

Yesterday, Lewiss, from Beacon Road, Trimingham, was ordered by magistrates to pay the men all the money they were owed and which she had kept for herself.

However, the 44-year-old can still run Rail Recruit (UK) Projects Ltd in Prince of Wales Road, Cromer, as magistrates did not have the power to ban her under old legislation after she had earlier pleaded guilty to nine counts of withholding the money from the workers.

Because the offences happened before April 6 she could not be hauled before Norwich Crown Court for tougher sentencing for people who abuse casual workers. She could have been disqualified from running the company for 10 years.

Despite the magistrates' disappointment over their lack of sentencing powers, Lewiss's sentence was praised by the government as part of its clampdown on agencies which abuse casual workers.

Yarmouth Magistrates' Court heard Lewiss had employed two workers through Rail Recruit UK Ltd, which was wound up last November, and the rest were taken on by Rail Recruit (UK) Projects Ltd.

They were hired to work on railways in Wales from 2007 to build rail side troughs for a subcontractor for Network Rail as part of a deal worth more than £100,000 to Lewiss.

The men, who were mostly from the north of England, were meant to be paid between £12.50 and £23 an hour.

Stephen Grayson, prosecuting for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, said after the work was completed the Employ-ment Agency Inspectorate received a complaint that the nine men had not been paid for their work.

The group had repeatedly tried to contact Lewiss to find out why they had not received any wages. In a statement, Shaun Conner, who was owed £625, said: "I have been fobbed off with excuses each time I telephoned."

Mr Grayson said: "In short, the workers complained they did everything they could to recover these monies and nothing was forthcoming. It means the difference between paying their monthly mortgage or rent or not being able to pay them."

Chairman of the bench, David Breezer, commenting on his lack of sentencing powers, said: "If the offence had taken place after April we would have referred the matter to the crown court."

The bench heard that since Lewiss's first company had been wound up by the high court she had been left with massive debts.

Lewiss and her husband, who are both on benefits, had to rely on her mother for handouts.

It was also claimed that her existing Rail Recruit (UK) Projects recruit-ment agency was not trading or making any money, even though the court was shown evidence it was still touting for work.

Amrik Wahilala, mitigating, said: "This is not the case of Mrs Lewiss not wanting to pay; she could not pay. She is sorry for what has happened. She can't afford to pay her mortgage. She is relying on her mother."

Because of Lewiss's financial position, magistrates did not fine her but ordered her to pay £1,000 towards the prosecution costs.

Last night, Lord Young, the minister for employment relations, praised Lewiss's sentencing by saying: "We are going full steam ahead to tackle agencies that exploit vulnerable workers.

"This action sends a clear signal that we will take action to de-rail rogue recruiters in Norfolk."