UNITE drivers at GXO Logistics in Motherwell have launched strike action, amid an ongoing dispute over pay rates and inequality at the site.

Beginning on Friday, workers at the firm which supplies companies such as Costco, Loch Lomond distilleries, Superdrug, Savers, Poundland and Whyte & Mackay will strike for a full week.

More action is planned later in the month, as well as December and January, unless the employer gets back round the table to resolve the dispute.

Drivers not only argue that the pay offer from the company, which coined in £33.6 million operating profit after tax in 2024 - up from £28.4m in the previous year - is too low, but that it entrenches a discrimination between them and other drivers at the site who can earn as much as 10 per cent more.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It’s disgraceful that an extremely wealthy company in GXO Logistics is paying one group of drivers significantly less than others operating out of the same depot doing the same job.

“The company can easily afford to pay its workers equally but has chosen not to out of sheer greed.”

“Unite always puts the jobs, pay and conditions of its members first, and the GXO striking drivers in Motherwell will receive their union’s full support.”  

Unite industrial officer Andrew Brown added: “Unite members are integral to the operations at GXO Logistics in Motherwell. Any disruption caused because of the strike action will lie entirely with GXO management because this is a company stockpiling cash.

“Make no mistake, our members will escalate the strike action until management gets back round the table to resolve this dispute.”

GXO Logistics was contacted for comment.