MARITIME union RMT has told Stena Line ferries that it is in dispute over the company’s “unacceptable” attack on sick pay.

The union is preparing to ballot around 1,000 seafarers and dockers on five routes after the Sweden-based transnational refused to row back on its shocking April decision to cut sick pay as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

The dispute involves workers on Irish Sea services between Cairnryan, Birkenhead and Belfast, Holyhead and Dublin, and Fishguard and Rosslare, as well as the North Sea route between Harwich and the Hook of Holland.