Supermarket group Jumbo has pulled out of talks with the unions on a new pay deal for distribution centre workers.

The talks have been deadlocked for some time and Jumbo has now decided to make a deal with the company works council instead, the company said on Monday.

The unions are demanding a pay rise of 2.5% but Jumbo is unwilling to pay more than 1.5%. The unions also want more permanent positions for workers on temporary contracts. Most of the 3,000 distribution centre workers are on flexible contracts.

Deals on pay and conditions made between unions and employers are known as a CAO, or collective labour agreement. CAOs apply automatically across all workers. Agreements made with the works council are known as an AVR and each worker has to vote whether or not to accept it.

‘The most important aspect of an AVR is usually pay, so workers nearly always vote in favour,’ lawyer Evert Verhulp told NOS Radio 1.

The company claims most workers do not feel represented by the unions while the unions say the company is acting like a dictatorship and putting workers’ rights back decades by sidelining them.