CORUS workers on Teesside voted to support beleaguered colleagues in the coil plate mill and support a ballot for industrial action.

The 234 workers in the mill are set to be made redundant by June after management rejected the rescue package put forward by the unions.

The closure of the mill would bring an end to Teesside's 60-year-old integrated steel industry.

Yesterday, unions met at branches across the Teesside works to ask them to support their colleagues in the coil plate mill.

Workers voted for an overtime ban and work-to-rule - a move that could lead to the first industrial action on Teesside for more than 20 years.

Last night, Mick Mannion, deputy chairman of the multi-union steel committee on Teesside, said unions from across the country were meeting national officers in London today to ask for financial backing for the action.

Mr Mannion said: "We want to take industrial action that will affect the company, rather than the people who work for it, and that is how we are going to run it. We want to make sure it doesn't affect our members' pay packets."