Lindsey oil protest

An industrial dispute at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire escalated dramatically when almost 900 workers were sacked – the entire workforce of a £200m construction project. Union shop stewards at the Total plant were told that dismissal letters had been posted to the workers and would arrive this morning. They were dismissed as unofficial strike action over 51 job losses on a project to build a hydro desulphurisation plant was about to enter its eighth consecutive day. Photograph: John Giles/Press Association

The same workers at Lindsey were at the centre of a wave of wildcat action which swept the country in February over the issue of migrant workers taking jobs on UK construction projects in the energy sector. Photograph: Andrew Yates/AFP/Getty Images

Italian workers contracted to work at Total's Lindsey refinery were housed in a former prison ship at Grimsby. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian

February's strike over the use of foreign labour at Lindsey ended after a week when workers voted to accept a deal, negotiated between unions and management, that saw an additional 102 jobs offered to British workers on the site. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

February's action spread around the country by phone in a 'domino' effect, union stewards said. Pictured, Keith Gibson from the GMB union addresses protesters calling on French company Alstom to give British workers fair access to construction jobs at Staythorpe power station near Newark. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian

Protesters at Staythorpe demanded a share of 850 turbine-building and pipeline jobs at the site, most currently held by Spanish and other foreign workers, for skilled local men who were out of work. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian

Workers at Sizewell power station in Suffolk were among protesters at around 12 sites that joined wildcat strikes. Photograph: Graham Turner/Guardian

This week Lindsey was hit by another dispute and wildcat strikes again spread across the UK. There were walkouts at sites in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Cheshire and South Wales in support of 51 men who faced losing their jobs at the Lindsey terminal. Workers at Didcot power station in Oxfordshire and a power station construction site near Milford Haven also joined the action. The protests, the targets of which included Britain's largest coal-fired power station at Drax in North Yorkshire, had little effect on operations but triggered alarm that there could be a repeat of the widespread disruption earlier in the year. Photograph: John Giles/Press Association