THE chairman of nuclear reprocessing firm BNFL last night announced he is stepping down, only hours before workers at the firm staged their first strike in 26 years.

Hundreds of employees at the Sellafield site, in Cumbria, will strike during today's 2pm to 10pm shift in a pay dispute.

Union leaders said they hoped the resignation of 62-year-old Hugh Collum from his £157,500-a-year job would help break the deadlocked row.

Workers are to strike after claiming that the company had reneged on an agreement to close a £2,000 pay gap between manual and white collar workers.

Unions complained that BNFL had agreed to harmonise pay by next April, but then said it could not be done until 2009.

Brian Strutton, national officer of the GMB, said: "We had hoped that BNFL would be reasonable and meet with us to avoid this dispute, but our calls for talks have been met with silence.

"It is time for the company to honour its commitments to the workforce and bring industrial shift pay in line with their white collar counterparts. We hope that the announcement of Hugh Collum's resignation the day before the strike at Sellafield is a signal that some of the barriers for negotiation are coming down.

"We continue to urge BNFL to sit down and negotiate with us, but they have refused to do so for the last two months."

Sellafield's director, Brian Watson, said: "This is an excellent workforce and we are absolutely committed to delivering on our safety promises to our workers, their families and the local community.

"I am disappointed that some people felt the need to resort to industrial action. Clearly, this issue needs to be resolved."

Mr Collum will leave in the middle of next year.