Unite's Les Bayliss - "All the sacked workers at Lindsey must be reinstated"

Talks are tonight underway at a secret location in London betwen Unite and the GMB and the oil company Total.

Havng failed to turn up at ACAS for talks on Friday, Total has agreed to hold talks over sacked workers at its Lindsey refinery as unofficial action continued to spread across the UK.

The U-turn coincided with a demonstration by about 800 strikers and their supporters outside the £200m extension to the Lincolnshire plant, where industrial action has halted building work for 10 days.

Elsewhere, strikes continued, with workers at the Coryton oil refinery in Essex taking action for the first time, 900 construction and maintenance staff walking out of the Sellafield nuclear power complex in Cumbria, and more than 3,000 downing tools at 18 major sites in Teesside, south Wales, Scotland and Oxfordshire.

Unite assiatant general secretary, Les Bayliss, who has overall responsibilty for construction in Unite is leading the talks. Les said: "I am pleased to see that the company has changed its position. Unite will be meeting with the employers in London . We will make it absolutely clear that all the sacked workers at Lindsey must be reinstated. This is the only way there is going to be a settlement to this dispute."

The dispute centres on a contractor's redundancy notices to 51 steel erectors, platers and welders, which were allegedly given without the workers being notified that another subcontractor was taking on 61 new staff.

Outside Lindsey, a protester dressed as the Grim Reaper, who did not want to give his name, said the action was "about saving the British construction industry and its high standards".

"We've had long apprenticeships and training, and we do things properly," he said. "Total has run into trouble here because contractors have taken on people who don't have the same approach. They have tried to rip up the rulebook which management and workers have used successfully for 30 years."

Walkouts so far
1. Longannet power station Fife, Scotland 150 on strike
2. Cockenzie power station East Lothian
3. Sellafield Cumbria
4. Ensus refinery Teesside
5. Eggborough Near Goole, East Yorkshire
6. Drax power station North Yorkshire
7. Stanlow oil refinery Ellesmere Port, Cheshire - 500 people on strike
8. South Hook LNG terminal Milford Haven
9. Aberthaw West of Cardiff - 300 people on strike
10. Didcot A power station Oxfordshire - 60 workers on strike
11. Coryton refinery Essex - 200 walk out on strike

Source: BBC

Today programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l348n/Today_23_06_2009/

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8114154.stm