THE Unite union is likely to admit defeat in its ongoing dispute with Honda despite last ditch talks with a national negotiator.

After a full day of talks on Wednesday the deadlock still remained over whether the three per cent pay cut workers accepted last year will be reimbursed.

Unite claims Honda went back on a promise not to cut further jobs if the pay cut was accepted.

According to Jim D’Avila, Unite’s regional officer, the car giant has apologised to its workers for the way it handled the 1,700 redundancies over the last year.

He said: “It was a long, long meeting but we didn’t get a result. They are still adamant they didn’t break any agreement and we are adamant they did.

“The whole point of agreeing to the cut was to save 500 jobs, which the company then cut anyway.”

Normal pay levels will be resumed from April and Honda has insisted that its Associate Release Programme (ARP) has been in no way funded by the three per cent cut.

There are still 370 people who have signed up to the ARP who will be leaving by March but the company has confirmed there will be no more job losses in 2010.

Mr D’Avila said: “We have to decide what we do now and I will be going back to talk to the shop stewards about this.

“Do we continue to gripe and moan or do we just take it on the chin? We still have to work with Honda and they still have 3,000 employees who we will continue to work for.

“Honda did apologise for not involving the unions in their discussions and that is an apology to all the workers.

“Now we would like the company to recognise they have 3,000 employees and there are still going to be difficult times. They have to make it clear they are behind those workers.”

Wednesday’s negotiations included Unite’s national officer Dave Osborne, who was called in after local talks broke down.

The union still has the option of taking the dispute to Acas, the Government agency for resolving employment disputes, or an independent arbitrator.

David Hodgetts, Director at Honda UK Manufacturing, said “Despite extremely difficult trading conditions during 2009 we believe we have completely honoured our commitment to associates to protect their jobs.

“All the actions taken as a business were made in order to sustain our operation and safeguard employment.

“In fact, following the success of the third ARP, the remaining manpower level is much more in line with the production plan for the next financial year, which provides further job security for all those associates who have decided to remain with Honda.”