Ensus Workers Walkout In Sympathy With Lindsey Refinery Workers

Around 1,100 workers at the not quite completed Ensus bio-ethanol refinery on Teesside have walked off the job in sympathy with workers at the Total Lindsey oil refinery dispute, according to media reports.

The wildcat strike comes as 200 contractors at the Drax power station in Selby also went AWOL. Unofficial action has now escalated to an estimated 17 energy sites across the UK. Others include Aberthaw power station in south Wales; Stanlow oil refinery, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire; Ferrybridge power station, West Yorkshire; and Staythorpe power station, Nottinghamshire.

The Ensus plant was also hit by walkouts in May, after Middlesbrough got relegated and contractors downed tools in a fit of pique in support of disputes over the (non) hiring of local labour at a liquefied natural gas terminal in Milford Haven, west Wales.

I'm tempted to say sack the work-shy, shell-suit wearing, relegation-plagued, Greggs-pastie-eating lot of them. But that would be unkind.