Thousands of contract workers at oil and gas plantsin England and Wales are staging unofficial strikes in protest over theuse of foreign labour.
Staff at sites in Pembrokeshire, theVale of Glamorgan, North Lincolnshire and Cheshire are taking part inthe wildcat action which began on Tuesday.
Workers there say an agreement to offer jobs to local workers has been broken.
Similar walkouts took place in January after a Lincolnshire refinery gave a £200m contract to an Italian firm.
The latest dispute began when workers at the liquefied natural gasterminal in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, accused their bosses ofbreaching an agreement to employ British staff at the South Hook site.
‘Regret situation’
Unionshop steward Jason Smith said a contracting firm’s decision to onlyemploy Polish labour for a phase of work had got “everybody’s backsup”.
“The only reason we’re here is they [the workers] all feellet down. The site agreement has always been local and British labourfirst,” he said.
But Hertel UK, the contractor for thePembrokeshire site, said it had been unable to source skilled peoplefor the start of the project.