More than 1,000 contract workers at Grangemouth oil refinery and Longannet power station have walked out on another day of unofficial action. It follows mass meetings at the plants this morning. They say the protest is against foreign firms who, they claim, will not employ British workers.

At Longannet power station, around 400 contractors have packed up and gone home for the day. They had a meeting this morning where they decided to continue this unofficial action for another 24 hours.

They say this is in support of colleagues at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire. They are angry about the use of foreign contractorsby a foreign company that has been brought in there.

They say that this flies in the face of Gordon Brown's pledge from a couple of years ago of "British jobs for British workers".

It has been a similar picture at the Grangemouth refinery where around 700 contractors took part in a mass meeting this morning.

They decided that they would be off today, but would return to work tomorrow, and there was a lot of frustration and anger
on show this morning.

The people taking this action are contractors - they are the type of workers who might travel round the country to different sites for work - and they are not the staff of the plant.

Ineos at Grangemouth are keen to stress that they as a company are not involved in the dispute.

The contractors will be back at work tomorrow, but in terms of resolving this dispute, the ball remains very much in the government's court.