Tuesday June 23, 01:30 PM
Wildcat strikes spread at British power plants
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NORTH KILLINGHOLME, England (AFP) - Wildcat strikes spread to oil refineries and power plants across Britain on Tuesday, after hundreds of workers were sacked, media reports and company officials said.
Thousands of workers demonstrated outside the Lindsey terminal in Lincolnshire, northeastern England, where almost 650 contract workers were sacked by French oil giant Total last week.
"As far as we are concerned, they are victimised and locked-out people, and it is an official dispute from the moment those notices arrived," said Paul Kenny, head of the GMB union.
In a statement, Total called for unions to resume talks over the sacking of 647 workers.
"Total is actively encouraging talks to be opened between its contractors and the unions about how to facilitate the return to work of its contracting companies? former workforces," the French company said.
But protests spread elsewhere.
Workers from the Coryton oil refinery in Essex, southeast England, also rallied in support of the protestors at Lindsey, which was at the centre of a bitter dispute over the use of foreign labour in January.
Unofficial protest action was also reported at the Longannet power station in Scotland, the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, northwest England, and the Didcot power station in Oxfordshire, central England.
At the Aberthaw power station in South Wales, some 300 contract workers walked out -- but a spokeswoman for the plant's owners RWE (Xetra: 703712 - news) npower stressed that none of its employees were involved.
"We understand that around 300 contract workers, who work on either construction or maintenance projects at Aberthaw Power Station, have downed tools today in support of workers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery," she said.
"No RWE npower staff are involved and the situation is not affecting operations at Aberthaw Power Station."
The latest dispute -- which comes amid the worst recession since World War II -- started when about 1,200 contract workers called a strike to protest the sacking of 51 people working on a construction project at the plant.
The Lindsey workers claimed an agreement not to cut jobs had been broken, but Total disputed this. On Monday many of the sacked Lindsey workers burned their letters of dismissal, in protest.
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