According to the BBC, as many as 700 workers were involved in the walk out from Staythorpe Power Station over claims that two Spanish employees had breached scaffolding safety guidelines.
Following a health and safety investigation, site contractor Alstom stated that one employee was potentially at fault and no longer worked there.
Strikers are expected to vote later on whether to return to work.
The second worker has been cleared of any wrong-doing. Alstom said it was disappointed with the unofficial action and is urging staff to return to work and use agreed channels in future to voice any grievances.
Health and safety is a key responsibility for companies to address and companies have to comply with regulations to ensure that the risk of injury occurring is reduced. The legislation which deals with working on scaffolding is the Working at Height Regulations 2005. This provides that under section 6 (3):
Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.
In addition to this there is a requirement that an employer ensures that no person engages in any activity in relation to working at height unless he is competent to do so. Therefore it is understandable why Alstom have taken the measures to dismiss this individual if they did not feel he was capable of performing his role safely. However, undoubtedly they should have followed the statutory grievance procedures to ensure that his dismissal was fair.
