Mint workers step up strikes

A total of 500 workers took part in the first strike

Union members at the Royal Mint in south Wales are to step up a campaign of strikes in a dispute over pay.

A series of two-day walkouts are to begin over the next month, which union leaders say will badly hit the factory at Llantrisant.

The announcement follows the rejection of a new pay offer which workers said was worse than the one they have already turned down.

Five hundred members of Amicus are currently in the process of staging the latest of a string of one-day strikes.

The workers will be involved in two-day stoppages on Thursday the 20th and Friday the 21st of November and Monday the 24th and Tuesday the 25th.

The union said the new strike dates are either side of weekends and will mean six days of disruption because workers are refusing to work any overtime.

They are expected to mirror this action next month with strikes planned for December 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th.

The first strike was staged at the beginning of October with the walkout mainly affecting production staff at the coin manufacturer - a government agency which employs 800 people.

The Royal Mint had offered workers a 3% rise plus £400 in the first year and a 2.5% rise plus £400 in year two.

But more than 90% of Amicus members at the plant voted for strike action last month after proposals by the union for a 9% pay offer over three years were rejected.