HUNDREDS of factory floor workers at Southampton's British America Tobacco factory were today voting on a revised pay offer from the company.

They held a 24-hour strike last Wednesday at the 26-acre plant in a dispute over a tabled two-year offer.

BAT bosses and union chiefs met up two days ago in a bid to break the deadlock.

A condition of those talks, which led to a new deal being aired, was the suspension today of a planned strike.

Up to 400 members of the manufacturing union Amicus were holding a secret ballot at the seed-to-smoke factory today.

The votes will be counted from 6.15am tomorrow, with the result known within the hour.

Mike Budd, the regional officer for Amicus, spent Tuesday night and yesterday telling hundreds of workers on three different shifts what the new pay deal means to them.

BAT says it is sticking to offering a 2.6 per cent rise in the first year but Amicus wanted at least three per cent.

However, the company is offering 3.25 per cent for the second year, or the rate of inflation, depending on what is higher.

That represents an increased offer of 0.25 per cent.

The company has also improved its productivity-related payments by slightly dropping its efficiency targets, worth up to an extra one per cent.

Overall, the revised offer represents a 6.85 per cent rise over two years, Amicus had been angling for at least seven per cent.

Mr Budd said: "It's not what the union wanted. We fought hard in negotiations and ended with a deal that fell short of our intentions.

"But we feel we have come to the end of the road and to strike now would not improve the situation. We ought to move on and get back to discussions with management that ensure the safeguarding of the plant's future."

A spokesman for BAT, which employs 1,200 people in Southampton, said: "Both parties believe this now provides a basis from which we can work together for a successful future."

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, operators at the cigarette-making factory earn an annual basic salary of £23,227, while technicians get £25,776 and fitters £28,327.

A 0.4 per cent pay rise, which Amicus wanted for the first year on top of the 2.6 per cent already tabled, amounted to £1.78 a week for operators, or £1.98 for technicians, or £2.18 for fitters.

Last Wednesday's strike was the first of its kind at the factory in 22 years.