Mr Alex Salmond was accused of snubbing Scots workers after one of the country's last surviving steel plants lost out on a lucrative deal for the new Forth road bridge.
His SNP administration awarded the GBP 790 million contract to metal firms in China, Spain and Poland just days ago insisting that no Scottish firms had made a bid.
But anger erupted when it was revealed the Indian owners of the Dalzell plant in Motherwell were part of a rival consortium which wanted the business.
The row comes amid spiraling unemployment rates and Mr Salmond building closer ties with China following the deal which brought two giant pandas to Edinburgh Zoo.
In a further embarrassment, government sources suggested ministers were unaware that a Scottish based steel firm had even been involved in the bid.
Union bosses representing the 360 strong Dalzell workforce accused the First Minister of favoring foreign workers.
Mr John McHugh, Scottish organizer of the union community, said that "Why Chinese steelworks benefiting and Scottish steelworkers are aren't. This is atrocious. Give them back the pandas and give us the work."
Mr McHugh also claimed the plant could have supplied up to a third of the steel needed for the GBP 1.5 billion Forth Replacement Crossing.
Government agency Transport Scotland, which is overseeing the project, last week announced it had awarded the contracts for 37,000 tonnes of steel to the foreign firms. It said the contracts were for raw steel and steel fabricated into structures for key segments of the structure, due to be completed in 2017.
Crucially, transport minister Mr Keith Brown declared no Scottish firms had bid for the steel contracts.
But it emerged Dalzell's owner TATA had been part of the failed consortium. The company, which owns Jaguar cars and Land Rover, has another steel site at Clydebridge in Cambuslang.
In a statement, the company said that "TATA Steel can confirm that it did participate indirectly in the bid for the tendering process for the Forth bridge and that its Dalzell works is capable of supplying a significant proportion of the steel required."
The British Trade Union Community's general secretary Mr Michael Leahy called for the procurement process to be paused while a review is carried out. In a letter to Mr Salmond he said TATA employees were shocked and angered.
Labour MSP for Motherwell Mr John Pentland challenged Mr Salmond on the issue during the First Minister's Questions at Holyrood. Mr Salmond said he would be glad to arrange a ministerial meeting.
In its announcement last week Transport Scotland said no Scottish firms bid to supply the huge amount of raw steel required.
But a spokeswoman claimed the contracts were not for raw steel. She said that "Scottish firms simply did not bid for the fabrication of steel for the Forth Replacement Crossing. The award of recent steel supply contracts was for structural steelwork fabricators and not the manufacture of raw steel. If a Scottish firm had been involved in the bid process further down the line we would not necessarily have been aware of that."
She said Mr Brown would be happy to meet the chief executive of Tata to discuss the issue.
(Sourced from www.express.co.uk)
