French oil and gas company Total fired about 600 contract workers last week following a series of unofficial strikes over job losses at the refinery.

Total says the workers have until Monday evening to reapply for their jobs, and says it has been encouraged by initial feedback from contractors.

Contract workers complained that one subcontractor planned to cut 51 jobs while another contractor at the site was hiring staff.

Many workers from industrial sites around England have staged walkouts to show their sympathy for the refinery workers at Lindsey, located about 265 kilometers north of London.

'Let them show us how many want to go back in there crawling on their bellies for their jobs,' said Phil Whitehurst of the GMB union, speaking at the rally. 'We go out together, we go back together.'

Total said the strike had stopped work on a 200 million pound (S$481 million) hydro-desulphurization plant but had not affected refining operations.

Some 900 welders, electricians, platers and pipe fitters at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility in northwestern England decided on Monday to stay off the job until Wednesday in support of the Lindsey workers.

Gary Stockton, an organizer for the Unite Union, said the workers had no complaint about their employment at Sellafield, but felt that Total was riding roughshod over workers. Sellafield management said the strikers were all contract workers, and that its directly employed workers were remaining on the job.

Among other sympathy actions, 230 contract workers walked out of a construction project at a natural gas terminal at Milford Haven in western Wales, and around 300 contract workers struck at Aberthaw Power Station in South Wales, managers said. -- AP