A STRIKE at an engineering plant at Sudbury planned for today has been suspended while staff are balloted on a “substantially different” management offer to one they previously rejected.

A STRIKE at an engineering plant at Sudbury planned for today has been suspended while staff are balloted on a “substantially different” management offer to one they previously rejected.

Members of the Unite union at Delphi Diesel, makers of high precision diesel injection components, voted by 72% to reject a previous pay offer from management.

But previously agreed strike action has been suspended for the second time while around 600 Unite members at the plant, which employs 850 staff, vote on another management offer.

A company representative said both negotiating teams were working “extremely hard” to come to an agreement.

Steve Coppock, human resources manager at Delphi in Sudbury, said: “I am able to confirm both negotiating teams have worked extremely hard to put together a new pay offer. Details of the revised position are agreed in principle.

“The union agreed sufficient progress had been made for them to suspend industrial action for this Friday. Talks continue to finalise details and a new proposal will be put to union members in the next few days.”

Senior Unite shop steward Paul Brewster said: “The company have come up with a last-minute offer. We have had a meeting with the shop floor. We are notifying all our areas of the factory. We are suspending action for a week while we re-ballot our members over the new offer.”

He said he could not disclose the details of the offer yet, as all members had not yet been informed of them.

“It's substantially different to any previous offer which the company has made,” he said.