LONDON: Hundreds of workers at a British nuclear processing plant walked out on Monday, joining growing protests over the use of foreign workers at a time when Britain is in recession and unemployment is rising.

Up to 900 contractors at the Sellafield nuclear plant walked off the job, joining hundreds of other contractors who have gone on strike in recent days over the use of foreign labourers who they say are being given preferential access to jobs.

The industrial action, which has so far mostly affected power and energy plants in the east and northwest of Britain, appears to be spreading, with internet forums encouraging sympathy strikes nationwide.

The action is a reflection of rising unease as Britain’s economy moves deeper into recession and unemployment edges higher almost two million Britons are now jobless, with the unemployment rate over six per cent and rising.

Organisers denied the Sellafield action was anti-foreign, saying it aimed to make a level playing field for all workers.

“We are not trying to stop foreign labour coming to Britain, we are trying to stop them coming in and being paid less than we are and under-cutting us,” Bill Eilbeck, a union organiser at the Sellafield plant, told reporters.

“We are really asking for equal rights, not just for us but for the foreign workers as well.

“If the government do not listen to us the situation could escalate even further and you will be seeing more strikes, which we do not want to happen.”

LABOUR PAINS: The foreign worker dispute is proving an embarrassment for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who in a speech after taking power in mid-2007 pledged “British jobs for British workers”.

On Monday he expressed some sympathy with those struggling for work but also said strikes were the wrong course of action.

“I recognise that people are worried about their jobs at the moment and I want them and their colleagues to be treated fairly,” he said after meeting China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.

“But I do not believe that the strike action that is happening is anything other than counterproductive.”

Brown faces a general election by mid-2010 and is concerned that unrest could damage his Labour party, traditionally the party of the working classes and funded by the unions.

Labour trails the opposition Conservatives in polls and its prospects are made bleaker by forecasts that Britain’s economy will contract sharply this year and possibly into 2010 the economy is named as the leading issue for voters.

As well as at Sellafield in the northwest region of Cumbria, around 300 workers walked off the job at a power station in the northern town of Widnes, and 300 more downed tools at a nuclear power plant.

Contractors also staged brief, fresh demonstrations at the French-owned refinery in eastern England, which set the spark that led to the widening dispute.—Reuters