Construction workers on a power station site have walked out on unofficial strike after being told they faced disciplinary action if they joined a protest over foreign employees.
A number of engineering construction workers at the Staythorpe power station near Newark in Nottinghamshire took wildcat action, GMB sources said.
The action was a carbon copy of a series of unofficial strikes over a similar dispute at a power station in Lincolnshire which ended last week.
Unions have been complaining for months that UK workers are being denied access to contract work at sites such as power stations.
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, will lead a delegation of workers in delivering a petition to 10 Downing Street calling on the Prime Minister to insist that employers give UK workers fair access to work on UK engineering and construction projects.
Meanwhile, unemployed construction workers turned out in force to demand fair access to jobs as the row over the use of foreign labour reignited.
Around 70 protesters gathered at the Grain Power Station on the Isle of Grain in Kent, waving banners and placards stating "Alstom give us a chance", "Alstom stop excluding British workers" and "GMB says no to discrimination and calls for equal opportunities for workers to work".
Alstom has been contracted by power company E.On to build a power station at Grain.
However, demonstrators claimed skilled workers were being denied the chance to apply for work at the site.
They claimed its Polish subcontractors, Remak and ZRE, were refusing to consider applications from UK labourers for the estimated 450 jobs available over the course of the project.
