Union members at Rolls-Royce will vote on an increased pay deal after weeks of negotiations with the jet engine manufacturer. A previous one-off cash bonus of £2,000 and a 4% pay increase for Derby workers was rejected by the unions Unite and GMB at the end of June.
Further talks took place on July 21 in a stage two (final stage) dispute resolution meeting, reports Derbyshire Live. A newsletter to union members said: "At the end of these intense discussions a full and final offer was made by the company. However, on July 22, the company indicated a desire to make an improved revised offer to the negotiating team. The offer was not finalised until July 29.
"The company’s offer for 2022 is a 6.5% increase to all salaries and scales effective from March 1, 2022, without any other strings. Your negotiators agreed with the company to present this offer back to you, the membership, to have your say in the form of a ballot."
The ballot will take place from Wednesday, August 3, through to Wednesday, August 17, and the results will be announced on August 18.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman confirmed the pay offer had been revised. He said: “We can confirm that following further discussions with employee representatives, we have revised our UK pay offer. A formal offer has now been made of a base pay increase of 6.5%, effective from March 1, 2022, which will now proceed to a ballot of members.
"During our discussions, the trade unions made it clear that a base pay increase was preferred to a combination of base pay and our previously offered £2,000 cash lump sum. Both the company and the trade unions now agree that we have reached the best offer we are able to achieve, taking into consideration the external context and Rolls-Royce’s affordability position."
The revised pay offer will affect 11,000 staff and works employees who are represented by the union. The £2,000 cash sum will not now be paid to them.
The £2,000 will still be paid this month to an additional 3,000 non-union represented staff and junior managers. Unrepresented workers will also get a 1.5% pay increase, which combined with the previous pay rise of 2.5% in March takes them to a total of 4% for 2022, backdated to March 2022. Rolls-Royce has approximately 20,000 UK employees in total.
All eyes will be on the company's upcoming half-year results scheduled to be announced on Thursday (August 4). Shares have been trading at 90p over the past few days - this is about 40% below the highest level in 2021.
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