Flooring workers continue pay battle

Strike action for better pay is set to continue from 31 October at vinyl flooring manufacturer Polyflor Ltd in Bury, Greater Manchester. An improved offer after their first strike is still below the level of inflation.

The manufacturing company has three sites; only the Bury site is unionised at present, by GMB, with almost 200 members. Workers at the other two sites (Oldham and Tyneside) are represented by a forum comprising two shop floor workers, two office staff, two managers and a company director.

In August the company offered a 2 per cent pay rise. Workers had no pay increase in 2020-21. The staff forum accepted it but GMB members in Bury turned it down.

Improved

The workers took strike action over three weeks at the Bury site from the end of September after the comany responded to two-hour stoppages with suspensions. But the employer then made an improved offer of a £400 one-off payment and an 8 per cent wage rise.

The GMB members are now demanding a 10 per cent pay rise and will renew the strike for two weeks from Monday 31 October, voting 97 per cent in favour on a 96 per cent turn out.

Polyflor is part of the James Halstead group of businesses, quoted on the London Stock Exchange. It has been manufacturing flooring in Britain since 1915. Earlier in October the group posted record profits of £52 million for the year to 30 June on revenues of £292 million, an increase of nearly 10 per cent. Shareholders received £24 million in dividends.