Amicus GPMS, the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI), GMB and the Transport and General Workers Union have all agreed to work in partnership to develop a new agreement.

All parties agreed that the current agreement contained elements that were out-of-date and did not take factors such as globalisation, forthcoming employment legislation or social issues into account.

Frustrations have grown on both sides after the pay talks at the annual national negotiations last year nearly collapsed, with a number of companies withdrawing from the National Agreement. 
A steering group has been established to look at issues such as health and safety and making the industry attractive to work in.