The Council of Trade Unions believes the Government's letting quarry workers down.

Two workers have died in less than a month.

A man died yesterday after becoming trapped under a 45 tonne rock cutter at a Tauranga quarry, while quarry worker Scott Baldwin died on the 19th of March in south Timaru.

The Council of Trade Union's, Jeff Sissons, says new health and safety rules for underground mines introduced after the Pike River tragedy brought in new powers for industry health and safety reps.

But he says after lobbying from industry, the Government excluded quarries from the protections of that new law.

"If there had been an industry health and safety rep for quarrying maybe they would have got one of these quarries and pointed out some of the things that are going wrong with their systems."