Safety concerns spark new walkout

Construction workers at Staythorpe power station in Nottinghamshire staged a walk-out over health and safety on 16 February, four days after the GMB called off a strike over redundancy selection. The workers called for an immediate inspection, claiming that scaffolding had been interfered with.

The site has been a focus of action by union members over the undercutting of their national agreement.

Despite reassurances given during unofficial disputes in February 2009 by main contractor Alstom and business minister Lord Mandelson that this was not happening, an independent audit revealed that Somi Impiante, an Italian sub-contractor, had been underpaying employees by €1,300 (£1,127) per month.

Mike Hockey, managing director of the ECIA employers association, described it as “an isolated incident involving underpayment of less than 25 staff”. But the GMB accused the contractor of having provided “fictitious payslips” to the auditors.

The Somi revelations fuelled protest action by engineering construction workers in London on 3 February, with the GMB calling for it to be “kicked off” Staythorpe and other projects, and for Alstom to be expelled from the ECIA.

The redundancy dispute was settled when it was agreed that agency staff would leave the site before directly-employed workers, and that both parties would use procedures in the NAECI national agreement for future issues at the site.