UNION officials have written to the boss of a major drinks company in an effort to prevent further strikes for whisky distillery staff.

Workers at Chivas are to stage a one-day strike over apparent wage disparities on August 7, and two further stoppages have been announced for the August 14 and 15.

Unite the union say some staff are being paid hundreds of pounds less than colleagues between the Kilmalid and Paisley sites.

The union has now written to the Chief Executive of Pernod Ricard, Alexandre Ricard, parent group of Chivas Brothers, highlighting the wage disparities.

An extract from the letter to Mr Ricard states: "As the leader of the parent group, and with ultimate responsibility for the reputation of your various brands including Chivas Brothers, the workforce have requested that you look into this matter to seek a positive resolution for all parties concerned.

"We have repeatedly urged Chivas Regal to implement the harmonisation of pay and conditions with immediate effect.

"However, management insisted that the harmonisation would not take effect until 2018 despite previously issuing a letter in 2006 to all employees stating harmonisation of pay and conditions would occur across the two sites'.

Unite regional coordinating officer Elaine Dougal said: "Chivas itself states in its advertisements 'here's to the straight talkers, who give their word and keep it'.

"A thirteen year wait does not constitute a speedy resolution over pay inequalities and the standardisation of terms and conditions across the sites.

"Unite believes it is time the company keeps its own word.

"For this reason, we have written to the Chief Executive of Pernod Ricard to seek the intervention by Chivas Brother's parent company in an effort to get a positive result for all concerned.

"The reputation of Chivas Regal is not just at stake but also Pernod Ricard because of the intransigent actions of local management.

"Pernod Ricard will also now need to decide if broken promises and pay inequality is something it wishes its brand to be associated with."

Laurent Lacassagne, Chairman & CEO at Chivas Brothers said: “We regret that some of our employees at the Kilmalid site have taken industrial action today, especially as union members at our Paisley, Southern Operations and Northern Operations have accepted our pay offer. While this process continues, we believe it is critical that all information shared with our employees, and put into the public domain, is entirely accurate and as such we would like to correct a few points.

“It is not the case that we told employees in 2006 that we would harmonise pay across the Paisley and Kilmalid sites. We did commit to harmonising a number of benefits, and did so in 2007. With regards to the current pay harmonisation proposal, it was Chivas Brothers who actively proposed this between Kilmalid and Paisley for the first time late last year and we have committed to bringing forward the harmonisation of pay rates to January 2018.

“The figure quoted regarding the difference in pay between our Paisley and Kilmalid sites is entirely inaccurate. Our Kilmalid and Paisley sites have different salary review dates meaning there are periods in the year where pay differences are exaggerated. While there is a slight difference across sites in terms of basic pay, as previously stated, we have already agreed to bring forward the harmonisation of pay to January 2018.

“We want to reiterate that overall pay levels for these employees are highly competitive and, in addition, we expect the majority of basic salaries at Kilmalid to increase by 11.6% over the duration of the three and half years of the pay deal.”