Critics have condemned the fitting out of the Scottish parliament with Thai-made windows.
Bovis has subcontracted the fabrication of the £200m Holyrood Parliament’s windows to US company Flour which is having them fabricated in Thailand. Scottish and North American oak is being shipped to the Far East to take advantage of lower labour costs.
Scottish trade unions claim the Thai workers are paid £3 for 10-hour shifts – 30p per hour – and that this breaks the ethical clauses in Bovis’s contract that stipulate a range of workers’ rights.
Bill Speirs, general-secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Council, said he doubted Scotland’s 129 MSPs would want to work in a building that used materials made by exploited workers.
And he added: ‘I can’t believe it is cheaper to transport oak halfway round the world and that it is still cheaper than having it laminated here.’
David Sulman, secretary of the Scottish Timber Trade Association, said: ‘We would have hoped that as far as possible they would have used Scottish material. It seems that Scottish joinery manufacturers are being denied the opportunity of providing the joinery.’
Mr Sulman pointed to the recent downsizing of Scottish window manufacturer Fife Joinery Manufacturing Ltd, which is to lay off 44 full-time workers by the end of the month.
