Textile workers in Bradford are to launch a series of strikes and overtime bans in a pay dispute.

Workers at the Bulmer and Lumb Group, Buttershaw Mills, Bradford, will be staging the first of a series of one day strikes on July 8.

The move follows months of pay negotiations between the T&G union and textiles firms.

The union balloted its members after it was offered a 1.5 per cent pay rise and has now called for strikes on a selective basis, with the Buttershaw Mills firm set to be the first.

Peter Booth, national organiser of the union, said: "Following the derisory pay offer of 1.5 per cent, workers in this industry are left with little alternative than to take industrial action in support of a fair wage settlement to this year's negotiations."

He claimed workers in wool textiles are among the lowest paid in British industry.

"To expect them to accept wage increases less than a fair going rate is nothing less than to condemn them to perpetual low pay," he said.

"Our members are among the highest skilled workers in Britain, producing some of the finest cloths and materials in the world and their skills and abilities should be properly and adequately rewarded.

"The union will be looking to call members in individual companies into selective industrial action and the first company to be included in this action will be workers at the Bulmer and Lumb Group."

No-one was available for comment at Bulmer and Lumb today.

The Bulmer and Lumb Group employs around 350 people. Established in 1931, it was acquired by Allied Textile Companies PLC in 1987.

Following a £5 million management buyout, which was led by the firm's managing director William Waterhouse, in June 2000, the Group was privatised and taken off the Stock Exchange.

Firms within the Group include ATC Dyers, Walshaw Drakes, Boardman & Smith, SH Rawnsleys, W Pearson, and HF Hartley Ltd.

The firm has been at the forefront of developing soft handling yarns using pre treated wools for machine washable knitwear garments.

The Group's specialist services to the wool and textile industry include processing fibres, dyeing yarn for spinning companies, and blending yarns for weaving.

It has been based at its current complex since the 1960s, and exports more than 50 per cent of its business outside of Europe.