8:27 am, February 12, 2025
Industrial action is being planned at a BMW engine plant with more than 600 workers set to walk out on strike amid an ongoing pay dispute.
Employees are to walk out during February, March and April, having failed to reach a settlement over improved pay, with the vast majority (90%) of strikers coming the firm’s Hams Hill factory in Birmingham.
Trade union, Unite, says the workers have taken the decision after ‘nearly year-long’ negotiations relating to BMW’s 2024 pay increase.
The Hams Hall site creates engine units for both BMW and Mini products, which are supplied to the brands’ production facilities in Oxford, Germany and Austria.
Unite has accused BMW of ‘double dealing’ and alleges that submitted a pay offer which was then rescinded. The union also claims that the German manufacturer offered ‘half of what BMW colleagues in Oxford have received in 2024’.
Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, said: ‘BMW’s Hams Hall workforce has had enough of the company’s disgraceful double-dealing over pay. They are sick of being treated as second-class employees and fed up with the company’s broken promises.
‘Industrial relations at the site have never been lower. BMW can more than afford to put forward an acceptable offer and that is what needs to happen.’
In response to the claims, BMW UK insisted it had made a ‘fair and considered pay offer’ to staff.
A spokesperson for BMW said: ‘We are disappointed that the Hams Hall workforce has rejected the latest pay offer and intends to start industrial action.
‘In light of these developments, the plant will implement contingency measures to minimise the impact of any industrial action on its production process.
‘The company has made a fair and considered pay offer and is open to continue constructive negotiations with the Plant Council and Union representatives.’
