About 300 members of the Community Union who work at the Corus Tubes plant in Corby have opted to take a vote on whether to take the action over the firm's announcement that it will not pay bonuses for their last three months' work.

Union spokesman Duncan Harrod said: "I think they are pretty worked up about this.

"This is a fairly significant part of their take-home pay. If Corus wants to negotiate a new set of bonuses we would do that, but we can't with a gun to our head.

"They are acting completely unreasonably.

"We haven't set the date for a ballot yet."

He said any action would probably be taken at the same time as members at the Hartlepool plant, whose ballot will finish on November 9.

Members voted for the ballot at a mass meeting on Sunday.

Workers in India – who are employed by Corus' parent company Tata – were given bonuses of up to 18.5 per cent and an additional payment in arrears of 8.33 per cent in the last financial year.

Corus also paid its employees bonuses under the 2008/09 bonus plan.
The bonuses are said to be a key part of the workers' pay packages, based on long-standing contractual and procedural agreements dating back to the early 1980s, and staff are angry that decades of custom have been discarded.

It is believed Corus has blamed the recession on their decision not to pay the bonuses.

Rob Simpson, from Corus, said: "Corus has written to employees re-affirming that bonuses cannot be paid for the quarter just ended in view of the fact that bonus agreements with the trade unions for 2009/10 have not been concluded.

"The company is hopeful that discussions with the trade unions can commence shortly and have confirmed to employees that any payments due under the new agreements will be paid to them at the next scheduled payment date."