The workers are contractors for Alstom, which is building the £600m Staythorpe plant for German utility giant RWE npower.

They claim that scaffolding was tampered with and called for an immediate inspection. In recent weeks there have also been disagreements about foreign contractors and job losses, which caused separate unofficial strikes last year.

Hundreds of workers from the site spontaneously begun to demonstrate early on Tuesday morning, blocking nearby roads.

Andy Fletcher of the GMB union called the unofficial strikes a "very serious matter for the industry".

"The UK construction industry safety record is very good but unless issues such as this are addressed and sorted out it will not retain that reputation for long and people will be hurt," he said.

However, a spokesman for Alstom insisted that the safety issues had already been resolved, claiming there was no evidence there had ever been a problem.

He said there had been a disagreement over whether or not a scaffold bar was temporarily removed in order for work to be completed. "An independent assessment of the allegations found that there was no conclusive evidence that this took place and a reconstruction of the alleged events showed that the work could in fact be done without removing any scaffolding.

"Health and safety is always the main focus on all Alstom sites, so much so that Alstom has asked the Health and Safety Executive to conduct a further independent review to confirm that appropriate procedures were followed.

"Given that following the immediate, initial investigation no evidence was found of any breach of safety procedures, union shop stewards have themselves been attempting to stop what is unsupported and wholly inappropriate action by these workers, who are unlawfully preventing the majority of workers from getting on to site."

When completed, the gas-fired plant will be the second biggest in the UK, providing enough energy to power 2m homes.

Source: Daily Telegraph

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Thanks for the info SF Admin

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Why is Abbreviation, such a long word ?

If there was no breach in safety procedures then why did a scaffold damn near collapse.

Smacks of a cover up so they can continue to bring in labour from other countries, i don't mind foreign labour, what i do mind is anybody workin here that doesn't bother about safety regs on major construction jobs like this where a lot of lives are at risk

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