UPDATE:Parties Meet On UK Lindsey Refinery; Strike Poll Starts
August 12 2009 - 7:18AM
Dow Jones News
Unions and contract companies employing workers at Total SA's
(TOT) 200,000-barrels-a-day Lindsey Oil Refinery in the U.K.
Wednesday revisited a labor dispute which sparked nationwide
strikes earlier this year.
The parties were meeting in Doncaster, northern England,
Wednesday to discuss a labor deal reached in June after thousands
of contract workers in the U.K.'s engineering construction industry
walked out in sympathy over layoffs at the Lindsey plant.
"The purpose of reconvening...is to discuss the impasse on the
site where that agreement has not yet been implemented," the GMB
union said in a statement.
Total said it would attend the meeting as an observer but
declined to comment further because the workers were employed by
contract companies.
"We want all issues to be resolved in order to get the project
back on track and completed as soon as possible," the company said
in an emailed statement.
Employers agreed in June to reinstate the 647-strong workforce
on a GBP200-million construction project to build a refinery unit
at the Lindsey plant. But the GMB said the 35,000 hours of work
promised by employers hasn't yet been made available to workers,
leading to many layoffs.
Separately, the GMB Tuesday began polling its members in the
engineering construction industry for strike action on pay and
conditions.
The sites being balloted between Aug. 11 and Sept.1 are: BP
PLC's (BP) Forties Pipeline System, Ineos PLC's Grangemouth
Refinery in Scotland, Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSB) Stanlow
Refinery in England, RWE AG's (RWE.XE) Staythorpe and Aberthaw
power stations in England and Wales, Chevron Corp.'s (CVX) Pembroke
Refinery in Wales and the Sellafield nuclear site in England.
The Unite union, which also planned to poll its members at the
sites, wasn't immediately available for comment.
Around 50,000 people are employed in the U.K.'s engineering
construction industry, according to the Engineering Construction
Industry Association, the employers' group.
-By Lananh Nguyen, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20-7842-9479;
lananh.nguyen@dowjones.com