Hundreds of M&E workers at Hinkley Point C were told not to come back for a week after a canteen sit-in protest over safety concerns. The MEH Alliance staff were barred from the nuclear construction site until next Monday and told the time away would be unpaid.

The shutdown landed immediately after workers challenged the way they were being asked to clock in and clock out on site, turning a safety dispute into a week-long lockout that has left hundreds of people off the job. For the workers involved, the issue was not abstract: they said the arrangement put them in a crane-lift zone when they were clocking out, while management said the claim had been investigated and there was no risk.

The protest began after MEH staff voted to reject new shift patterns, then staged a sit-in in the canteen as the disagreement widened. A worker said hundreds of safety-conscious nuclear construction workers had been locked out without pay for raising legitimate hazard and fatigue concerns. At the same time, the Hinkley Point C spokesperson said unofficial industrial action was being taken by members of the MEH workforce and said other construction workers continued to work as normal across the site.

That account leaves a clear split between the two sides. Workers say they were raising a genuine danger linked to the clocking-out arrangement; site management says the matter had already been looked at and that the risk claim did not stand up. The spokesperson also said there were established trade-union processes for resolving workplace concerns and that unofficial action was not acceptable.

A heavy police presence was visible at the site the next day, adding to the sense that a local workplace dispute had become a much sharper stand-off at one of Britain’s biggest nuclear projects. The next confirmed date in the row is Monday, when the workers were told they could return. Whether they do, and whether the safety dispute is still alive when they do, is now the question hanging over Hinkley Point C.