ANGRY paperboys and girls are due to picket a Warminster newsagent tomorrow after their wages were cut by 50 per cent.

The group of eight, who are all aged under 16, have Sunday newspaper rounds with Balfour News in the Market Place. On Sunday their pay for the round was cut from £4.50 to £2.50.

The youngsters claim they were only told of the pay cut when they arrived for work on Sunday.

They were also told they would be charged for any damaged newspapers and would have to pay 20p for any newspapers they mistakenly failed to deliver.

Shop manager Lee Dalton told his young employees that the shop was experiencing financial difficulties and that he had to make cut backs.

Paperboy Sam Cunningham, 14, from Ruskin Drive, Warminster, arrived at the shop on Sunday to find four colleagues refusing to deliver any papers.

Sam, who goes to Kingdown Community School, organised a meeting of the affected paperboys and girls at the school on Monday lunchtime.

The shop's assistant manager Daniel Williams was on duty on Sunday while Mr Dalton was on holiday.

Sam's father Ashley Cunningham, 38, went to speak to Mr Williams after learning of the wage cut.

Mr Cunningham said: "He explained that the home deliveries are losing money so they have got to make adjustments. He tried to tell me the situation was not bad.

"It's quite unacceptable. If my employers were to make adjustments to my salary they've have to give me reasonable notice.

"We are taking this matter quite seriously. We will try to arrange a strike and encourage people to boycott the shop."

Sam's grandfather Adrian Cunningham added: "The manager is exploiting the children.

"The shop is practically shoving the children back up the chimney as they did in Victorian times.

"The real reason the manager is doing this is because he knows the children can't do anything because they are all too young to have a minimum wage.

"There is not a fair wage for children between 11 and 16."

Mr Dalton said the youngsters knew of the wage cuts beforehand.

He said: "We told them well before Sunday, we said that a lot of rounds were going to be changing.

"What he Ashley Cunningham was carrying on about was a bit ridiculous. It was a bit of an over-reaction. We can't afford to pay them the wages we are paying."