WORKERS at car company Honda’s Swindon plant will face a three per cent pay cut when the company resumes production next month after a four-month shutdown as a result of a slump in the market.

The Japanese company said the cut would be temporary and had been agreed by the representative council at the plant in Swindon, which employs 3,500 people. Management will face a five per cent pay cut, with the wage reduction expected to be in place until March 2010. Unite union officer Jim D’Avila said: “In return for a temporary three per cent cut in pay, we can ensure that hundreds of workers will stay in work.”

Unite said it would ballot its members on whether to accept the pay cut.

PROFITS FALL: Bookmaker Ladbrokes said profits were down by a third after punters enjoyed a successful Cheltenham Festival. An unusually high number of horse race cancellations also affected the performance in the four months to April 30, although Ladbrokes said more normal trading patterns had returned in recent weeks, helped by a favourable outcome in the Grand National, at Aintree, last month. Chief executive Chris Bell said predicting activity levels in the current climate was difficult, but said he remained confident in Ladbrokes’ performance over the year.

TUCK IN: Business networking groups will hold two open breakfast meetings next week. BNI, which has more than 5,000 chapters in 43 countries, will meet in the Billingham Arms Hotel, Billingham, near Stockton, on Tuesday, and the Park Head Hotel, Coundon, near Bishop Auckland, on Wednesday. Both meetings will start at 6.30am and finish by 8.30am. Tickets are £7, available by emailing alan.foster@bni-north.com FLIGHTS OFF: Executives abandoned corporate flights last year as the recession led to a slump in international business travel from London.

International scheduled business travel from London’s major airports fell six per cent