Meat hygiene inspectors, vets and support staff employed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) are set to be balloted for strike action over an imposed pay offer of 0.75%.
Ballot papers are due to be sent out next week to more than 500 UNISON members working for the FSA in England, Wales and Scotland.
The union is seeking an above inflation pay increase that would begin to make up some of the 15% that has been lost from the pay packets of FSA staff under the coalition government.
Meat hygiene inspectors, vets and the finance and administrative staff who support them, are responsible for physically inspecting carcasses in slaughterhouses to ensure that diseases and abnormalities are prevented from entering the food chain.
UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “Our members working for the Food Standards Agency do a vital job to ensure that the meat on our plates is free from disease and safe to eat. They have an enormous responsibility in maintaining consumer health, and it is right that they receive a pay increase that is at least in line with inflation.
“We are calling on the Food Standards Agency to come back to the negotiating table with a better offer. It is an insult that the FSA has chosen to impose below inflation pay awards two years in a row, with no real consultation, which represents a massive cut to people’s pay and pensions.
“It is time to take a stand and we are urging members to vote yes to strike action.”
UNISON’s FSA members voted overwhelmingly in a consultative ballot last month to reject the 0.75% pay offer and move to a formal industrial action ballot.