MORE than 1,000 North-East workers who have spent six days on unofficial strike in protest at the sacking of 650 people at the Lindsey refinery are to return to work after a resolution was reached.

Workers at the Ensus biofuel plant at Wilton, on Teesside, walked out on Friday last week, after 650 fellow fuel plant workers at the Total refinery, in Lincolnshire, were sacked, and have repeated their walk-outs every day since.

And tonight, unions thanked biofuels company Ensus for its patience and for not turning to any “silly kneejerk reactions” to bring the walk-outs to an end.

Construction work on the £250m plant, which is still being built, has been brought to a halt during the past week, with Ensus describing each walk-out as “a day lost that we cannot recover”.

But today, after a week of negotiations at Lindsey, an agreement was reached which is expected to see the 650 workers – who lost their jobs after staging a week of unofficial walk-outs because of 51 redundancies – reinstated.

As a result, the 1,000 workers at Wilton, who have risked losing their jobs through taking unofficial action, yesterday voted unanimously to end their action and return to work on Monday.

The dispute was the second time in two months the workers at the wheat plant had walked out, after taking part in national wildcat strikes over contract labour in May.

Jimmy Skivington, regional organiser for the GMB union, told The Northern Echo on Thursday he had his “fingers crossed” that the dispute would come to an end, after receiving indications of a positive outcome from the Lindsey negotiations.

Tonight, he said: “I am over the moon this has been brought to an end and at the outcome for the lads at Lindsey.

“We can now look forward to getting back to work.”

Ensus again stressed they had no involvement with the situation at Lindsey, and there had been no dispute or issue at Wilton.