Defence union Unite is to ballot over 800 workers on industrial action in a long-running dispute over pay.

Employees at the Defence Support Group (DSG) will vote on strike action and action short of a strike from today.

The main DSG sites are at Bovington in Dorset, Catterick in North Yorkshire, Colchester in Essex, Donnington in Shropshire, Warminster in Wiltshire and Stirling.

Unite said its members had already rejected management’s 1 per cent pay offer for 2014 by a majority of 85 per cent in a consultative ballot.

The workers, who maintain, repair and overhaul military air and land equipment for the Ministry of Defence (MoD), are seeking an 8 per cent pay rise for 2014.

“It looks like the DSG will be sold off to the private sector in 2015 and our members want to be able to take with them to their new employer a decent rate of pay which can be consolidated for pension purposes,” said Unite national officer for the MoD Mike McCartney.

“DSG has a cash mountain of £65 million, which will go back to the Treasury’s coffers once the sale has been completed.

“The current DSG management can well afford to give a substantial pay rise to the workers who have made DSG such a success story.”

The sell-off of DSG was heralded by the coalition’s 2010 strategic defence review, but the process has been dogged by the issue of third-party intellectual property rights.