BOSSES at Britain’s Sellafield nuclear waste centre were accused yesterday of trying to turf out union GMB by “stealth and dirty tricks.”

The union said managers at the Cumbrian waste decommissioning site were using a job regrading scheme to take workers out of being covered by GMB’s collective agreements. 

GMB has around 400 members at Sellafield in key jobs such as monitoring conditions of materials. 

But regional organiser Chris Jukes said the union is being targeted in response to it’s campaigning on issues such as falling wages. 

“Sellafield management are operating in a culture where everything is geared to de-commissioning on the cheap,” he said. 

“The galling thing is that public money is keeping the site going, keeping top management in good terms and conditions with a good lifestyle at the expense of workers.”

The union has blown the whistle on the bosses’ political campaign months after they were criticised by Parliament’s public accounts committee.

MPs uncovered the company — in receipt of a £70 billion subsidy — had frittered away public funds. 

They found the firm owned by an international consortium has repeatedly failed to meet performance targets set by the government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. 

One executive spent £714 on a chauffeur-driven journey for his family, the committee found.

Mr Jukes said: “Fresh from recent scandals about the abuse of public money, there is now a pernicious management approach backed up by a management in denial.

“Management is determined to derecognise the GMB for campaigning successfully for their members, wants compliant unions on site, all of which smack of a dirty tricks campaign.

Sellafield employs around 15,000 people and is key to the regional economy.

Sellafield Ltd told the Star: “There are no plans to review the recognition agreement” but did not rule out re-grading individual workers.