PCS and Prospect union members at the Ordnance Survey (OS) mapmakers are being balloted on industrial action as frustration mounts at the lack of a fair pay deal which is already ten months late.
The ballot is taking place in sites in Southampton, London and most other major cities.
The ballot result is due on Friday of this week.
Any action will be the first in OS’s 200 year history.
It has taken an arrogant attitude on the part of management to produce this situation.
Management’s pay offer of 3.8 percent in year one and 3.6 percent in year two still meant large numbers of staff receiving consolidated increases worth less than inflation or making little or no progression through the pay bands.
The offer was rejected in a ballot of staff.
Fewer than 12 percent of union members voted to accept it in an 80 percent turnout.
Despite continued attempts by the unions to return to the negotiating table, OS bosses have made no improvement to their offer beyond cosmetic repackaging of the same headline figure.
John Barneveld, the Prospect union branch secretary, said, “Members are angered by the dismissive behaviour of the directors, whose own pay continues to comfortably outstrip inflation year after year.
“Negotiators from both sides have spent hours examining ways to make a deal but it seems clear that senior management had no serious intention to reach agreement.”