Hundreds of polish workers join wildcat strikes - Tuesday 3rd Feb

600 workers, including hundreds of Polish workers, have walked out from Langage Power Station near Plymouth in solidarity with the wildcat actions sweeping across Britain.

When five hundred site staff had failed to arrive by 10am, the small group of other foreign labourers (mostly Polish) who had been bussed in were sent home by management, deciding it was unsafe for them to work by themselves.

Jerry Pickford, regional officer for Unite South West, said workers had walked out in “general sympathy with what’s happening in the construction industry… all the Polish workers have walked out as well, because this is not an issue against foreign workers.

“This is an issue against foreign employers using foreign workers to stop British workers getting jobs. Once they do that they will try and undermine the terms and conditions of employment in this country.”

It would be illegal for the union to support the strike or even hold a ballot, but workers are taking action off their own backs. Today strike action also spread to the Sellafield nuclear plant, while 400 contractors at Scottish Power’s Longannet power station in Fife (along with 80 workers at an ExxonMobil plant there) and 130 at the Cockenzie Power Station extended their action until Friday.
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Map with links to all of the walk-outs, solidarity actions and strikes:

 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=56.018775,-3.707972&spn=8.320716,19.248047&z=6&msid=103813223147685278685.000461b04f7cc6b39c254

A long forum thread with infinite good sense (and lots of links in the comments:

 http://libcom.org/forums/news/oil-workers-walk-out-29012009

"A PDF of the February 2009 issue of the irregular workers' bulletin Tea Break, written and designed by users of libcom.org, for general distribution. The freesheet focuses on wildcat strikes at refineries across the country, addressing issues raised by the conflict":

 http://libcom.org/library/tea-break-exploitation-oil

Decent pro-strike analysis + news from The Commune site (with lots of cruddy comments from other Lefties slagging off the 'nationalists strikes'):

 http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/british-jobs-for-british-workers/

 http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/dont-walk-away-from-the-oil-refinery-strikers/