RANK and file electricians will shut down a major construction site tomorrow if bosses refuse to directly employ workers and reinstate victimised reps.

Unite union negotiators will meet with managers from electrical giant Phoenix today after shop steward Daniel Collins, who was working on an electrical refit of the Arcadia shopping mall near Oxford Circus, became their second rep to be sacked.

Phoenix and subcontractor D&D were pushed into the spotlight last week after another Unite rep, Graeme Boxall, was fired from a job refitting investment bank Morgan Stanley just half an hour after being elected and asking bosses for direct employment.

An unofficial picket outside the Canary Wharf bank last Monday secured his reinstatement on gardening leave.

Both men were employed through the subcontractor despite Phoenix signing up to collective bargaining agreements prescribing direct employment.

Workers on the Oxford Circus project had been told they would be transferred to Canary Wharf within the next fortnight following completion of the refit.

But Phoenix has reportedly withdrawn the Canary Wharf contract from D&D over the direct employment dispute.

With an agency drafted in to finish the work instead, workers at Oxford Circus have been told by D&D they will be laid off.

Mr Boxall, who has been promised his case will be sorted out when D&D boss Danny Green returns from holiday, told the Star he now fears bosses will not offer him full reinstatement.

“My gardening leave’s up Wednesday week, and they’ll say there’s no work at Canary Wharf [with D&D], goodbye.”

Phoenix chief executive Lee Compton formerly headed contractor Drake and Sculls, which blacklisted a number of electricians following industrial activity on the Jubilee line extension project in the late 1990s.

Rank and file sparks spokesman Eddie Current said: “If Phoenix wants a war we’re ready to take it on.”

Mr Boxall said workers would convene at the Oxford Circus site from 7.30am tomorrow morning if Phoenix bosses refused to directly employ sparks and reinstate sacked reps.

He said activists were also seeking legal advice on challenging managers’ tactics and decisions.

“The rank and file will stoke up as much resistance as we can,” he added.