Pay offer ends action

Strike action at pharmaceuticals and healthcare supplier United Drugs/Sangers was suspended yesterday (July 9) after management offered the workforce a backdated pay improvement.

Unite recommended that members accept the pay offer, while further talks on improving industrial relations are to recommence after the summer.

“Our members at United Drugs/Sangers NI voted overwhelmingly for strike action which was due to commence on Wednesday, July 15,” said Unite regional officer Sean Smyth.

“They were forced into an action which would have significantly disrupted supply of medicines across Northern Ireland by management insistence on a pay freeze and their refusal to engage in Labour Relations Agency mediation.”

But Smyth noted that after press coverage of the strike action, management reconsidered and engaged with members in a positive manner.

“They offered workers a three percent increase backdated to the beginning of January,” he explained.  “This has allowed us to suspend the action, with a ‘vote to accept’ recommendation to our members.

“Sangers’ management has recognised that relations with the workforce and the union need to improve given the importance of avoiding industrial disruption and its impact on the supply of controlled medicines,” Smyth added.

“They have agreed to re-engage after the summer to formalise our relationship, agree mechanisms for the resolution of future pay deals and address our members’ wider terms and conditions concerns,” he went on to say.

“This result has demonstrated once again that, by standing together with the support of a fighting union, workers can achieve substantial pay improvements.”