More than 180 workers employed by Mears in Manchester have voted in favour of fresh industrial action.

Further strikes are set to take place next month following a long-running pay dispute between staff and management.

Employees carrying out housing maintenance work for Mears and Manchester Working are angry over pay differentials of up to £3,500 for workers carrying out the same job as others, as well as changes to their terms and conditions.

The workers undertake housing maintenance work on 12,000 properties managed by Northwards Housing Association in north Manchester. The contract was tendered by Manchester council.

Union Unite said the new industrial action is being taken as a result of Mears failure to; meaningfully negotiate on pay and conditions, the detrimental treatment of workers during the previous dispute, attacks on workers' holiday entitlement, allocation of work to sub-contractors, inappropriate allocation of work to apprentices, trainees and improvers and proposed unilateral changes to working hours and conditions for some of the affected workers.

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So far, workers have already taken 40 days of strike action this year.

Unite regional officer Gary Fairclough, said: "The overwhelmingly vote in favour of strike action demonstrates the determination of Unite members to force Mears to address the injustices in the workplace.

"The result shows that Mears' is entirely deluded in thinking that the dispute would disappear.

"Rather than trying to end workplace injustice Mears has instead been using its energies to bully and intimidate our members. Attempts that the ballot result demonstrates have miserably failed.

"The impending industrial action will inevitably cause widespread disruption to housing tenants but this dispute is entirely a result of Mears' failure to resolve this longstanding dispute."

Unite expects to issue the exact details of the strike action in the coming days.

(LM/MH)