With recent CPI increase of 6.5% for the year, up 1.8% in the last quarter alone, comes the realisation that DSPL’s proposed annual wage increases of 4.6%, 3% and 3% are sorely lacking. Many of us already lurch from pay to pay, and with everyday costs shooting up the future isn’t a rosy picture.

But DSPL reckon their offer is fair – that’s how out of touch they are. Don’t buy the line that they’ll go broke if they pay you more, you’ve already taken low pay offers in good faith.

There appears to be no back pay, so they’ve saved while you’ve suffered, and while they try to say the parent company doesn’t fund DSPL, there’s no suggestion DSPL hasn’t had 2 extremely profitable years – because they have.

Another major concern is their reluctance to leave current grandfathering provisions in the agreement, the removal of which would see a substantial number of DSPL employees suffer major losses to terms and conditions, and to keep them they offer a substandard deal.

These conditions are only ever in agreements because you’ve previously traded away other rights to maintain them, yet DSPL try to frame the grandfathering provisions as an inequality between staff rather than a reward for the loyalty of your long-term service to the company.

It’s sad to see DSPL pitting workers against each other to try and get a positive vote. Instead of thinking ‘why should they get it if I don’t’ you should be thinking ‘why aren’t we all getting it?’. Nobody should be comfortable seeing colleagues lose rights and money, whatever the situation, and next time it might be your rights being voted away!

The choice is yours. If DSPL don’t change their position vote ‘no’ to say their offer is unacceptable or vote ‘yes’ to see your wages fall further behind the cost of living each year and contribute to the erosion of your long-term conditions.