Refinery strike threat halted (From Western Telegraph)

Refinery strike threat halted

A threatened walk out over safety concerns by contractors working on the Texaco shutdown has been averted with a promise of improved communication between management and workers.

A workforce of almost 3,000 is currently involved in the shutdown operation. On Friday, a welder suffered burns to the left side of his face and ear after a fire on one of the main boilers at the Pembroke plant.

Another man is believed to have been taken to hospital with shock, and several more were treated at the first aid station.

The strike, believed to be a reaction to this incident and two other gas leaks over the weekend, failed to materialise following talks between Texaco and union leaders. One of the measures agreed was a release of information every two days to inform contractors of events taking place on site.

The agreement comes two months after another incident in which 900 contract workers walked out. Lack of communication was blamed then, after a suspicious package was found in a pipe track at the refinery.

Speaking on Monday, union boss Danny Fellows said concern over safety had been heightened by the number of contractors who had never before worked on a refinery site. "There is a lot of new blood in the construction industry and to them the refinery is a very alien site,'' said Mr Fellows, regional industrial organiser of the Transport and General Workers Union.

"I know that when I first set foot on a refinery site in 1981 it was a very frightening place, even though I had worked in the steel industry. There are lots of bangs and releases of steam, but these are all part of normal processes.''

Mr Fellows admitted he would be the first person to seek a walk out if he thought the safety of workers was being compromised.

"If the operators at Texaco - lads who are working there day in day out - had concerns that would be enough for me, we would stop the whole thing now,'' he said. "But the concerns are coming from contractors who don't really understand the picture.''

From tomorrow (Thursday) the refinery will have shut down completely. The only machines remaining 'live' will be the steam boilers used to purge the pipelines. Divisional Fire Officer Harry Webber said that eight fire appliances had responded to Friday's category 2 incident.

He said: "When we got there the situation had been brought under control by the refinery's own fire staff. A release of gas had ignited and we cooled down the area around it." A Health and Safety Executive spokesman said an inspector had visited the site and was investigating the incident.