Publishing company Harper Collins has reached an agreement with employees over the use of agency workers and the allocation of overtime, after Unite union members voted to strike.

A HarperCollins spokesperson told Recruiter that the company had moved from employing staff on temporary contracts to using agency The Driving Edge.

He said: "HarperCollins has always used temporary staff to provide the flexibility demanded by the business. The only difference is that we now use an agency to provide a reliable source of good quality short-term employees rather than recruiting them directly ourselves."

Unite national officer, Steve Sibbald, disagreed, saying the nature of how temporary staff were used had changed: "They went from using a few agency staff to help out when work couldn't be covered by overtime, to using people in place of overtime, as they were cheaper."

He said Unite balloted its members for industrial action over the issue and 159 of the 160 voted to strike.

The HarperCollins spokesperson denied this: "The ballot for strike action was over a dispute around overtime, and this issue has now been amicably resolved."

An agreement was eventually reached without industrial action.