Around 450 workers at Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project are being balloted for strike action over a pay dispute, Unite has confirmed.
The workers, employed by Magnox, are based at Dounreay Power Station which is located in the far north of the country, around 30 miles from John o’ Groats.
Unite explained the dispute is a result of what it describes as an inadequate pay offer of 4.5% effective from April last year which was “emphatically rejected” by 95% in a consultative pay ballot.
This offer, Unite added, “amounts to a substantial real terms pay cut”, as the true rate of inflation stood at 11.4%.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The Dounreay workforce are highly-skilled and they undertake an extremely important job.
“The failure to pay our members a decent pay increase is outrageous, Magnox seems to have money to burn for directors and shareholders but thinks it is acceptable to deny its workers a decent pay increase.”
Unite said that the remuneration package of the highest paid Magnox director went up from £331,000 to £651,000 in March 2023, and the company paid dividends of £2.1 million in the same period.
Marc Jackson, Unite industrial officer, added: “Pay negotiations with Magnox have been ongoing since January 2023 with next to no movement by the company. However, Magnox has not been slow in making sure the remuneration packages for directors have been bolstered with the highest paid director seeing their package double in the space of a year.”
“Unite’s membership at Dounreay power station will no longer accept these double standards, and that’s why we are balloting our members for strike action,” he added.
A spokesperson for the site said: “We understand that the Dounreay union representatives felt that they had no choice but to ballot their members for industrial action over the pay deal. Obviously, this outcome is disappointing but it is the right of members to have their say.
“NRS Dounreay has made an offer of 4.5% with lower grades getting up to 7%. The Dounreay site will remain safe and secure and we sincerely hope we can resolve this as soon as possible.”
Magnox, which is currently trading as Nuclear Restoration Services, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
The site is scheduled to be fully decommissioned and cleaned-up in 2033.