UNION leaders representing North Sea oil workers will meet today to decide their next move in a long-running dispute over paid holidays.

The dispute is over holidays given to 17,000 oil rig workers, complaining that employers had resisted giving them the four weeks' paid leave they were entitled to under the Working Time Directive.

Some argued that holidays were covered by the industry's two week on/two week off working pattern.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Working in the North Sea is a tough and dangerous job. The TUC is absolutely determined that workers should have the same right to decent holidays as the rest of the UK workforce."