Nearly 6,000 workers at Belfast aerospace company Shorts will this week vote on a new pay offer. Ballot papers are going out today amid warnings from the management that jobs will be at risk if the offer is rejected and industrial action resumed.

After lengthy negotiations at the Labour Relations Agency in Belfast last Sunday, unions agreed to call off a week-long overtime ban and Friday half-day strikes while the new offer was put to their members.

A Shorts spokesman said the "revised offer" amounted to 3.75 per cent in the first year, 3.2 per cent in the second, 3.1 per cent in the third and 3.35 per cent in the fourth - with inflation protection in years two, three and four. The previous offer, which had been rejected by the unions, was 3 per cent a year with an inflation review in the fourth.

It will be a week of soul searching for the employees as they decide whether to accept or reject an offer which still falls short of what they wanted. Management has warned there would be a "significant risk to jobs" if the offer is rejected and industrial action re-started.

The yard earlier this year began a major recruitment drive as part of a £100 million sterling (€162 million) investment being carried out to cope with an increased workload created by a jump in orders for aircraft from its Canadian parent Bombardier.

The company warned that new work and some already at the yard could be moved elsewhere if there is any threat to delivery times.