Sellafield Workers Lazy

Sellafield ‘reckless’ with taxpayers’ cash in early home-time row. Dozens of workers at the Sellafield nuclear plant have been given an ‘informal warning’ for clocking off early. The revelation – said to relate to behaviour that went on for ‘several years’ – has prompted one national campaign group to call for tougher disciplinary action to be taken against the employees involved. The issue was highlighted thanks to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request which pinpoints investigations into allegations that workers at two distinct Sellafield work sites in west Cumbria were going home early. The FOI request says the first investigation began in 2018 after it was discovered staff at the Waste Monitoring and Compaction Plant (WAMAC) and satellite buildings were “shutting down the plant and leaving the Sellafield site several hours early on a daily basis.” This was going on “without authorisation for several years,” says the person who submitted the FOI. The information request adds: “This behaviour was discovered by chance when a building alarm exposed the fact that nobody was present when the plant should have been manned and running.” The FOI also asks Sellafield about a second similar issue at the Pile Fuel Storage Pond. Benjamin Elks, operations manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers will be shocked that workers are clocking off early. Yet these lazy loafers are getting off with barely even a slap on the wrist. “Sellafield bosses should bring in tougher disciplinary measures for such flagrant behaviour.” Marianne Birkby, of Radiation Free Lakeland, was equally scathing. “It shows utter recklessness with taxpayers’ money,” she said, adding that the behaviour exposed – by workers managing the nation’s stockpile of nuclear waste – was ‘truly shocking.’