The national agreement, a long-standing settlement with the union and its predecessors, covers over 2,500 members (around 98% of workers within the paper sector), of which 70% turned up to vote at the ballot.

The negotiated increase was backed by an overwhelming 78% of voters and will come into effect from 1 February.

CPI director general David Workman said that there were no other major changes within the agreement for the coming year, adding that the settlement was "sensible" given the state of the industry.

Unite national officer Steve Sibbald, who retires at the end of the month, said: "Negotiations were challenging this year because of the difficulties that the industry has been experiencing with a number of redundancies and a big downturn in some of the markets.

"So I am pleased that we were able to secure a modest but reasonable increase for our members taking all elements into consideration."

He added that members were always interested in improvements to holiday allowance but that Unite would save negotiations over annual leave until the economy begins to improve.