Chennai, July 5 : The conciliation talks between the striking workers and the management of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC) held at Puducherry Friday failed and the unions said they would approach the Madras High Court next week to get its order against the strike vacated.

"The talks are of routine nature and we do not expect any decision to come out of these talks on the issue at hand. We also made it clear that it was wrong on the part of the management to approach the Madras High Court and get a restraint order against strike," S. Rajavannian, general secretary of the Labour Progressive Front, affiliated to the DMK, told IANS.

Over 27,000 workers, regular and contractual, belonging to various unions struck work Wednesday night defying a Madras High Court ban order issued earlier in the day.

The strike is to protest the Centre's decision to divest five precent stake in NLC to earn around Rs. 466 crore.

"All the worker unions will be approaching the Madras High Court next week to vacate its order against the strike. We are confident of getting a favourable order," he added.

R. Udayakumar, secretary of the AIADMK affiliated Anna Workers and Staff Union, said: "We have appealed to the four associations representing the officers and the engineers to join the struggle. We will be filing a petition in the Madras High Court Monday."

He said the decision to revoke the disinvestment had to be taken by the central government and not at the labour conciliation forum.

Both the union leaders sounded confident that the four associations would join the strike.

"They seem to be compelled to attend to duties by the management. In 2006 in a similar situation they were with us," Rajavannian said.

According to him, the mining work is totally stopped at Neyveli and power generation is happening with the bunker stock.

The NLC has 2,490 MW capacity at Neyveli and another 250 MW at Barsingsar in Rajasthan. (IANS)