The wave of strikes that swept the UK last week is expected to escalate today with thousands more employees planning walkouts in protest at the exclusion of British workers from construction contracts.
The centre of last week's dispute, Total's Lindsey refinery on the Humber estuary, will again be the focal point, with workers from around the country pledging to join the 500 wildcat strikers who gathered outside the desulphurisation plant on Friday.
Elsewhere, up to 900 contractors at Sellafield nuclear power plant are due to meet this morning to decide whether to walk out.
A union source said feelings were running "extremely high" at scores of other sites, adding that the action appeared to have been co-ordinated via mobile phones, text messages and online forums. "This is unofficial action so it is impossible to say with any certainty what will happen but it seems fairly clear from what we are hearing that this is only going to grow."
On Friday up to 3,000 workers from at least 11 oil refineries and power plants in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland mounted protests and unofficial strikes over the granting of an estimated 300 jobs to European contractors at the Total refinery in Lincolnshire.
In an apparently co-ordinated action, 700 workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery near Falkirk walked out, and 400 more downed tools at the Wilton chemical site in Cleveland. There were also protests at eight other facilities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Last night Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, called on the government to address the workers' concerns. "Understandably UK workers are angry that they are excluded from jobs simply because they are British. The Labour government has been made aware of this issue and had promised to sort it out but they have failed to keep their promise," he said.
Fears that work on the 2012 Olympic site could be caught up in the dispute were played down yesterday. Alan Ritchie, general sectary of construction union UCATT, said that although it was monitoring developments, the site was one of the best regulated in the UK with workers directly employed and wages well above industry minimums. "Seventy per cent are British and Irish," he said. "Of the remaining 30%, which is fewer than 350 workers, most have lived in the area for over 20 years, but hold foreign passports."
The biggest demonstration is expected outside the Lindsey refinery from 6am today, although forecast snow may disrupt plans. Supporters are expected from across the country and organisers hope to block access to the plant.
Total last night issued a statement stressing it had never been its policy to discriminate against British workers. It said it would work with subcontractors "to ensure that British workers are considered in the same way as anyone else".
But staff at the site said they planned to get in early to avoid confrontation. It was confirmed that the Italian and Portuguese workers at the centre of the dispute will be confined to their barge hostel in nearby Grimsby docks. The situation in the port and at neighbouring Immingham was described as "volatile and nasty" by one of the workers at the refinery yesterday. He said that rumours were rife about the far right BNP attempting to exploit the issue and extremists "looking for the Italians in bars".
"It is disgusting," said the man, who did not want to be named. "They're decent people who've come here to work, just like our people – including plenty from Grimsby – go over there to do."
The conciliation service Acas was asked to mediate by the government on Friday and last night Derek Simpson, joint general secretary at Unite, said he had met ministers over the weekend to call for the creation of "a corporate social responsibility clause" that would force companies to give all workers fair access to jobs.
"We need an urgent meeting with the government and the employers this week to address the issues raised so we can bring this to a speedy and satisfactory resolution."
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