HEALTH monitors at the Sellafield nuclear site will strike next week for the second time in a month.

Workers will walk out from Tuesday to Friday in an attempt to move the job of health physics monitor into a higher pay band.

Atomic energy union GMB has accused management of anti-union activity and of “seeking to drive a wedge between industrial workers on site.”

“Management blatantly tried to derecognise the GMB and our members 18 months ago by grading the monitors in such a way that the GMB would have lost recognition rights,” said senior organiser Chris Jukes.

“Yet what management are now holding out for is a far poorer deal for the monitors than the offer they made to the workforce 18 months ago.

“The fact is that management have moved the goalposts repeatedly and even when perfectly reasonable solutions were at hand.”

On Tuesday, striking workers will march from Yottenfews to the main gate of the Sellafield site, which houses two nuclear reactors now in the process of being decommissioned.

Mr Jukes said that the company’s messages had been “public relations first, macho management second, personal attacks third.”

And he added: “The sheer propaganda that management have been putting out is aimed at talking tough.

“The dispute is also rapidly becoming as much about personalities on site as reaching a reasonable, professional and productive settlement.”

The site has also been hit recently by a strike of decommissioning workers calling for a full-time union official to prevent health and safety breaches.