Drax Group (LSE:DRX) workers will walkout from its Yorkshire power station for nine days between February and April, threatening to close down the plant entirely.
Some 180 workers from Unite union rejected an 8% pay increase and will begin strikes on 20 February in action that “will inevitably cause considerable strain on the national grid,” said a union regional officer.
The wood-pellet powered plant, near Selby in Yorkshire, has an output capacity of 3.9GW, roughly 7% of the UK’s energy, said the Union, which warned it could be shut by the strikes.
“Drax is cynically seeking to boost its bonanza profits further by forcing workers to take a real terms pay cut,” said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, suggesting the offer represented a real terms pay cut.
A Drax spokesperson responded: “We are deeply disappointed that Unite is planning to go forward with this unnecessary action,” adding unions GMB and Prospect, which also represent workers at the site, would not be striking.
50 workers from the generator’s Scottish hydro power plants are also being balloted to strike, threatening walkouts that could remove a combined 481MW of capacity from the grid from early March.