Offshore catering staff to be balloted over action


Employers in the Catering Offshore Trade Association (COTA) have been warned by the Unite general union that it will ballot its members across the agreement for industrial action. 


The dispute centres on the refusal of employers to honour a modest pay rise for the second year of a two-year pay deal, worth around 1.3%. 


COTA employers, including facilities services giants Aramark, Compass and Sodexo, have now been served with a statutory seven day notice for the ballot start period and the ballot itself will run for six weeks. 


Unite industrial officer John Boland said: “COTA employers’ profits run into billions and it is unacceptable that our agreement — negotiated in good faith — is now being ignored.”

www.unitetheunion.org/news/first-offshore-industrial-action-in-a-generation-looms-as-cota-ballot-notice-served