About 150 part-time and full-time youth workers are believed to be owed a total of more than 1m in back pay, following the implementation of a UK-wide Joint Negotiating Committee pay scale in 2004.
The five Education and Library Boards (ELBs), which run youth services in the country, introduced the revised pay scales for new workers, but have not updated the contracts of youth workers who were employed before the deal came in. The deadline for implementation is September.
Francis Loughlin, Northern Ireland convener for the community and youth workers' section of Unite, formerly known as Amicus, said: "It is no secret two boards, Belfast and South Eastern, have had major deficits so they are trying to spend as little as possible. But there is no reason for dragging it out. We will decide after the meeting on 7 June what action to take."
Gerard Doran, head of youth services for the Western and Southern ELBs, said: "The issue is moving more slowly than we'd like. It is a matter of working out all the practicalities."
From April 2008 the ELBs will be amalgamated into one overall board for Northern Ireland.
