MORE than 900 workers faced with a pay cut have voted for strike action at the Dounreay nuclear plant.

The Caithness site had been home to Britain’s experimental fast-breeder reactor programme since the 1950s, but since 1994 it has moved from electricity production and into what is expected to be decades of decommissioning work to make the site safe.

Since 2005 the site has been owned by the British government’s Nuclear Decommisioning Authority, managed by their Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS) arm whose recent 4.5 per cent pay offer — backdated to April 2023 — has so angered workers.

Just days after 85 per cent of the 450 GMB members on the site backed strike action, 85.5 per cent of their 460 comrades in Unite have voted to do so too as they battle for a pay offer which reflects the cost-of-greed crisis in prices that workers across the country have had to contend with over the last year.

Unite industrial officer Marc Jackson said: “NRS has basically strung our members along since January 2023 and they have simply had enough of the company’s games.

“There is a final opportunity to make our members a serious offer or any industrial action will lie at the doors of directors who have so richly remunerated themselves while ignoring the workforce.”

Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham warned: “Unless NRS quickly gets back around the negotiating table to make our members an offer they deserve, then industrial action will be inevitable.

“Unite will fully support our members at Dounreay power station in the fight for better jobs, pay and conditions.”

An NRS spokesman responded: “We are disappointed by the result and remain committed to working with the unions to find a resolution that is fair and affordable.”