Workers at a Fife manufacturing firm are to be balloted on strike action over a pay dispute.
Unite has confirmed around 90 staff at Port of Rosyth firm Oceaneering are involved in the dispute.
The company has made a 6% pay offer, plus a one-off payment, to its staff. That has been rejected by 84% of the workforce.
‘Highly skilled’ Fife workers
The pay offer rejection follows the workers having received a 1% increase in 2022.
The union says that represented a “massive real terms pay cut” with inflation rocketing to 14% last year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite’s members at Oceaneering are highly skilled workers providing specialist products for the obscenely lucrative offshore sector.
“They are rightly demanding to have their pay boosted to help meet the cost-of-living crisis.
“The Rosyth based workers will have Unite’s full support in the fight for better jobs, pay and conditions at Oceaneering.”
The oilfield services company, which specialises in manufacturing subsea cables, has operated in Fife for 20 years.
It provides engineering services and products primarily to the offshore oil and gas industry.
Unite’s members are specialist process workers who make umbilical cables to support various offshore oil and gas installations.
The ballot on potential strike action opens on Wednesday and closes on November 7.
It is the latest blow to the firm’s Fife workforce, which saw job losses in 2020.
Unite members want ‘fair’ pay offer
Bob MacGregor, Unite industrial officer, added: “There are around 90 workers who suffered a massive real terms pay cut last year.
“The offer on the table from Oceaneering doesn’t get anywhere close to addressing this situation along with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
“The company is also reporting that it is coming back into profit. Our members are looking for a fair pay offer to reflect their skilled work.”
Oceaneering has been asked to comment/.
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