WORKERS at a Rossendale slipper factory have been told they face an eight per cent pay cut - and an extra one and a half hours on their working week.

But the 120 employees at Bacup Shoe Company's Atherton Holme Mill, Stacksteads, have rejected the move by bosses.

They held a ballot organised by Rossendale Union of Boot, Shoe and Slipper Operatives on Friday.

Seventy-seven per cent of the workers voted against the pay cut and against working an extra one and a half hours a week and only 23 per cent voted in favour.

Today management at the factory refused to comment, and union secretary Michael Murray said the company had not stated what would happen next in the event of a vote against the pay cut.

He said: "As far as the union is concerned things will carry on at the factory. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

"Management have said they must reduce the price of their slippers to get more orders and they say they have to reduce their costs."

It is understood the company currently sends some uppers to premises in Poland to be cut and closed and workers are worried that more of this might occur.

But Mr Murray said the company was undercutting itself by doing this.

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