Workers at Nottinghamshire power station stage walkout

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Construction workers at a Nottinghamshire power station have staged an unofficial walkout after an alleged health and safety breach.

The GMB union said the workers at Staythorpe power station, near Newark, took action following concerns over scaffolding safety.

Alstom, the site's main contractor, said there was no evidence of a safety breach.

Police described the demonstration as "peaceful". No arrests have been made.

Les Dobbs, senior organiser of the GMB's Midland and East Coast branch, said the walkout was "spontaneous" and followed an incident last Tuesday when scaffolding was interfered with, which workers claimed had broken safety regulations.

Scaffold bar

He said about 300 workers had walked out, but police estimated that 150 people were involved in the demonstration.

A spokesman for Alstom said an initial investigation of last week's incident found no evidence of any breach of safety procedures.

He said: "Today's protest outside the Staythorpe power station construction site is both unofficial and not supported by unions.

"It stems from disagreements between subcontractors over whether or not a scaffold bar was temporarily removed in order for one of them to complete a piece of work.

"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."

The firm has asked the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to conduct a further independent review to confirm that appropriate procedures were followed.

A Nottinghamshire Police spokesman said: "The protest, I am told, is peaceful and good-natured. There have been no arrests."

He said the demonstration began at 0700 GMT, adding that workers had begun to disperse by about 1100 GMT.

Source: BBC News
 
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