Ineos Billionaire Targets Ex-Soldiers To Carry Out Minimum Wage Fracking Tests

If there’s one thing that Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe hates more than “poor” environmental performance ratings, major incidents at Grangemouth and Unions, it’s almost certainly the workers that risk their lives to keep his businesses running. This could explain the creation of an entirely new military logistics company Arturius International, created with a bunch of ex-military brass and a life peer with the intention of managing a transient, union-free, self employed, minimum wage workforce.

This is the type of employment that the fracking industry creates and it’s the majority of the employment that has been created where the industry has gone into production in the U.S and Australia. In a way it’s mirroring what’s happening with the wider gig economy except that in addition to being un-skilled, low-paid manual labour, it’s also extremely dangerous. The job advert spells it out. Working 12 hour shifts, six days a week, outdoors in all weathers, with hand tools and machinery, minimal on the job training and in the course of the seismic survey this may well include the handling of explosives. Ineos avoids a payroll, Arturius simplify theirs avoiding national insurance contributions and holiday pay and by the time workers have covered travel costs and inevitable expenses they’ll be way below minimum wage let alone living wage.

Jim Ratcliffe loves to bang on about the fact that he started out in a council house but is blind to the innate privilege and luck that benefited him along the way. Like so many self-made billionaires! he’s promptly joined the establishment and pulled the drawbridge up after him. How many respondents to these adds will get a chance to do the same?

Arturius International is logistics company based in Wiltshire which was formed in 2013 by planners and project managers from the British, French and US Armed Forces. The company claims to have “specialist skills in planning, reconnaissance and designing deliverable, robust solutions in hostile and unforgiving locations” and offers “integrated operational support to conventional and unconventional oil and gas, mining, defence and critical infrastructure sectors”. The company appears to employ mostly ex-military personnel and has close links with various NATO armed forces. Arturius’ chairman is Lord David Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff, who has also worked as an advisor to the government of the United Arab Emirates and US-based arms company DynCorp.
Read more about their plans to invade Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

TAKE ACTION NOW

For guidance on opposing a seismic survey in your area read this useful FAQ. Use these Seismic Survey Flyers for raising awareness about the threat posed by seismic surveys in your area. There is also a Seismic Spotter Sheet that highlights the signs and activity that are associated with a survey being carried out in your area.

An organised community is the best defence against the Fracking industry. Get our step-by-step guides and start planning an effective Anti-Fracking campaign where you live here…

The most significant factor in what happens next is building a community response in your area. If we can be of any assistance, or you want to report suspected activity, please email outreach@frack-off.org or call 07858 614861.