Workers who staged a walkout at Fife’s Mossmorran plant on Wednesday are continuing with their unofficial strike action.
Employees of German sub-contractor Bilfinger picketed outside Fife Ethylene Plant, near Cowdenbeath, early on Thursday morning on the second day of a dispute over pay.
More than 100 workers left the site, run by ExxonMobil, on Wednesday morning and are said to be locked in talks with management.
It was the second industrial action at the Cowdenbeath petrochemical plant this week, following a separate walkout on Monday by workers from another sub-contractor amid concerns over health and safety, including access to hot water and general wellbeing.
It is not clear whether that action is also continuing.
A spokesperson for Bilfinger said there had been no change to the situation since Wednesday, sparked when Bilfinger employees joined with “unofficial sympathy action”.
“This action resulted in a dispute over payment for the time our employees had withdrawn their labour,” he said.
“We are now working with our employees and the trade union Unite to quickly resolve this dispute.”
Unite Regional Industrial Officer, Bob MacGregor, said there were “significant” issues that required to be dealt with by ExxonMobil.
“Unite has just become aware of the situation involving a number of contract workers at the Mossmorran ExxonMobil site,” he said.
“Clearly there are significant issues which have resulted in a number of workers walking off the site, which the company needs to resolve.”
The second walkout came as ExxonMobil’s environmental performance was rated as “poor” by environment watchdog Sepa.
Exxon has appealed the assessment, which dates from 2018.
Fife Ethylene Plant has been closed since August following boiler failures and the ExxonMobil is investing £140 million to resolve issues, including unplanned flaring.
