White-collar staff at Ford across the UK are starting to vote on whether to strike for the first time in the company's history.

Unions say industrial action could hit the car giant's business worldwide.

The 7,000 employees involved are engineers, designers, and support staff based at Ford plants across the UK, including the huge factories at Dagenham in Essex and Halewood on Merseyside.

They want the same pay settlement as that won by production line staff last year - 15% over three years and a cut in the working week.

Ford has offered them 11% over three years.

Unions organising the ballot say their members are also worried about plans to merge their pension fund with that of other Ford workers.

But Ford says that the pay offer it has made is as generous as that to its manual workers and no-one will lose out from its pension reforms.

The professional workers are traditionally moderate, while blue-collar workers at Ford have a history of taking industrial action.

The result of the ballot should be known on 3 February.