DEALERS on the trading floor at the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) went on strike yesterday in protest at attempts to force them to shift more of their work on to electronic screens.

The board of the IPE will today consider a proposal to restrict the practice of “open outcry”, whereby dealers in brightly coloured jackets stand on the floor and carry out highly charged trading, to the afternoon.

The practice, once common on financial markets, survives in London only at the IPE and the London Metal Exchange.

Dealers, known as “locals”, say the shift to entirely electronic trading, which the IPE board has pledged to introduce eventually, will cost them their jobs and is unwanted by the market as a whole.

They also say the vast majority of trade is carried out by “open outcry” on the trading floor. That floor was largely empty yesterday as the locals instituted a boycott of all business carried out between themselves, although they agreed to fulfil orders on behalf of clients.

“We’re up in arms about this,” said one local, who declined to be identified. “The main feeling is that the screens haven’t been working, as in doing the volumes, and that no one wants them.”

The IPE refused to comment on the matter. A similar boycott was instituted in October, in protest at the first daytime introduction of the electronic screens.