SAINT JOHN, N.B. – Striking nuclear workers have asked New Brunswick’s Energy Minister to speak with their parent company as a national walkout enters it’s second day.

About 8 hundred members of the Society of Professional Engineers and Associates walked off the job yesterday in a dispute over wages and seniority.

There are about five members working on the Point Lepreau refurbishment and union vice-president Mike Ivanco says there are no plans to picket at the New Brunswick nuclear plant.

“I’m not saying that we would never do it but we’re very sensitive to the people of New Brunswick and the grief they’ve gone through over the Point Lepreau reactor. It’s something we would only do as a last resort, I think.”

Ivanco says parent company SNC Lavalin is accustomed to hiring engineers out of school with a lot of turnover something he says you don’t want in the nuclear business.