Jaguar Land Rover was on Thursday warned about possible industrial action after union members in the UK overwhelmingly voted against a pay and conditions offer by the company. 2,881 workers – 96 per cent of union members across the company’s five plants – rejected a three-year pay deal from the company, the Unite union said on Thursday, following the ballot, which took place in the morning. The union urged JLR to return to the negotiating table “or face an industrial action ballot.”

JLR on Thursday defended the pay and conditions offer, which it said represented a pay rise worth 7.7 per cent for a typical operator in the first year, and 14.1 per cent over the three-year period.

“Jaguar Land Rover remains committed to reaching a negotiated settlement,” the company said in a statement as it expressed its disappointment with the union’s decision.

Alex Flynn, a spokesperson for the union said it wasn’t possible to estimate a timeline for the next steps. “Obviously the ball is in the company’s court,” he told Businessline .

“JLR needs to get back around the negotiating table and hammer out a deal that meets the workforce’s expectations and shares the rewards of the company’s success fairly,” Roger Maddison, Unite’s national officer said in a statement. “Otherwise we will be looking to ballot our members for industrial action across the company’s five sites.”

Voting

The vote against the offer was expected after unions said shop stewards believed the pay offer fell short of expectations.

In addition to the size of the proposed wage rise (3.6 per cent plus a bonus in the first year and three per cent in two subsequent years), unions said members fear that un-pensionable bonuses would slowly replace wage rises, which were pensionable.

Unions are also unhappy with a number of other elements, including changes to the company’s final salary pension scheme.

Unions say the company is making £240 million of cuts to pensions despite changes to the final salary scheme being negotiated just two years before. In addition, they are critical of the six-year period it would take new starters at JLR to reach 100 per cent pay.

The standoff pits two perspectives of JLR’s legacy in the UK against each other.

On the one hand JLR has invested billions into the company, creating new plants and jobs – including the new £500-million engine manufacturing centre opened last month which will, when fully running, employ 1,400 people.

On the other unions argue that its workforce has been at the heart of the company’s success, sticking loyally to the company through tough times – including agreeing to a temporary wage freeze at the height of the economic crisis soon after the Tata Group took over the company.

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