The chairman of British nuclear reprocessing firm BNFL tonight announced he is stepping down, just hours before workers at the firm stage their first strike in26 years.
Hundreds of employees at the controversial Sellafield site in Cumbria will strike duringtomorrow's 2-10pm shift in a row over pay.
Union leaders said they hoped the resignation of Hugh Collum, 62, from hisStg £157,500-a-year job would help break the deadlocked row.
Hundreds of members of the GMB and Amicus will stage the first of a series ofstrikes 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 werenow saying it could not be done until 2009.
Brian Strutton, national officer of the GMB, said: "We had hoped that BNFLwould be reasonable and meet with us to avoid this dispute but our calls fortalks have been met with silence.
The unions are planning to escalate industrial action over the next few weeksif the dispute is not resolved.
BNFL said union members will continue to work in important safety roles acrossthe site tomorrow, as will the non-shift workforce, who are not involved in theaction.
Sellafield's Director, Brian Watson, said: "This is an excellent workforceand we are absolutely committed to delivering on our safety promises to ourworkers, their families and the local community.
"I'm disappointed that some people felt the need to resort to industrialaction. Clearly, this issue needs to be resolved."
Mr Collum, who was appointed in 1999, said he will leave in mid-2004 saying itwill be an appropriate time to step down because a strategic review of the firmwill have been completed and new chief executive Mike Parker will have been inhis post for almost a year.