Burton’s Biscuit Co. has confirmed it is to axe 64 jobs at its Edinburgh facility, a decision union officials claim stems from a dispute over pay.

The Maryland cookies and Wagon Wheels maker told just-food today (30 June) the changes, “regrettably” made, were “required to improve capabilities and competitiveness”.

However, the GMB union has “vowed to resist these job losses” as it does “not believe these were genuine redundancies” and instead are a reaction to a planned industrial action ballot it was set to hold on pay.

“Only last month we were talking to the company about bringing new products to the site, working in partnership in making the plant more efficient and improving the job security of the current workforce. Now we are being told there has to be redundancies before any of the work on improving the site’s performance has started,” said a spokesperson for GMB Scotland.

She added the push for redundancies was to “frighten” GMB Scotland members into voting no in the pay ballot.

“We will not allow this company to throw our members out of work as some kind of negotiating ploy in this industrial dispute,” she added.

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