Total: 30 Workers Strike At UK Lindsey Refinery; Output Unchanged

Thirty construction contractors went on strike Wednesday at Total SA's (TOT) 200,000-barrel-a-day Lindsey oil refinery in the U.K. to protest against the use of foreign labor, the company said.

The strike at the Lindsey plant in eastern England had no effect on the refinery's output, a U.K.-based Total spokesman said.

The Lindsey workers, who were working on a construction site to build a hydrodesulfurization unit at the plant, walked out Wednesday morning in sympathy with a protest at London's Olympic stadium site.

The Lindsey contractors will return to work Thursday, the spokesman added.

The London protest, backed by the GMB and Unite trade unions, called for more British construction workers to be employed at the Olympic site, reported BBC News.

A February walkout at Lindsey over the use of foreign workers prompted hundreds of workers to go on strike at many U.K. energy facilities.

 
   Company Web site: http://www.total.com 
 

-By Lananh Nguyen, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]