Wildcat sympathy strikes continue

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More energy plant staff have walked out in unofficial strike action in support of the 650 sacked workers at Lindsey oil refinery in North Lincolnshire.

About 200 downed tools at Drax power station in Selby, Yorkshire, along with others in Milford Haven, west Wales, Longannet in Fife and on Teesside.

Contractors at Lindsey have held another rally and claim support in other industries is growing.

Adjourned talks aimed at resolving the jobs dispute will resume on Thursday.

'National issue'

Contractors across Britain are being encouraged to continue wildcat strike action. Some have received text messages saying: "More is needed to finish this dispute to show we will not take this abuse any longer.

"All sites must show their support. This fight is far from over, brothers."

Unions have called for the sacked workers at Lindsey - and 51 others laid off there earlier this month - to be reinstated and want guarantees of no victimisation of sympathy strikers.

Phil Whitehurst, a GMB shop steward at Lindsey, said the support they have received was very encouraging.

"Well we're getting support now, or offers of support outside our industry. And that support is absolutely brilliant," he said.

"There's people now with nothing to do with the engineering construction industry telling us 'hey you don't back down on this'.

"This is a national issue. We had guys come from Dagenham to present us with a cheque for £500 to help the boys along. Now they're the Dagenham car workers."

About 4,000 workers at power stations and oil and gas terminals took unofficial action on Wednesday, and the unions claim a total of more than 13,000 have taken action.