UK energy workers walk off the job over foreign workers

Ignoring government pleas to stay on the job, workers at British power plants have gone on strike, joining a growing campaign of unrest over the hiring of overseas workers at an oil industry project in the northeastern town of Immingham.

Workers from at least three nuclear and traditional power plants staged walkouts on Monday, following the lead of thousands of workers at about a dozen sites who went on strike on Friday. Many workers who went out on Friday remained off the job on Monday.

The workers are protesting the decision of Italian construction company IREM SpA to use Italian and Portuguese workers for a 200 million-pound (US$280 million) project at a Total refinery in Immingham.

Several hundred protesters turned out at the construction site on this coastal town Monday morning.