Public sector union begins two-day strike

PCS members work in areas including the courts, ports, job and tax centres, museums and the House of Parliament itself. The walkout, which may include 30,000 Scottish union members, is the biggest show of industrial unrest in the civil service for 13 years. 

 

PCS members working under outsourced contracts for IT supplier HP at the Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Defence and at other HP public sector IT locations in Washington, Tyne and Wear and Preston and Blackpool, Lancashire, have also walked out. In the HP case, an allied grievance is the 3,400 EDS staff made redundant since HP took over the company in 2008, and a further 1,000 job losses planned for the first half of the year. 

A HP spokesperson told the press: "In co-operation with our clients, we have put together a plan to mitigate the impact of the two-day action." 

 

The PCS has asked members to refuse to work overtime all week and there could be another strike next week - while more action is planned ahead of the general election. 

 

In response the government claimed only 81,000 union members did not show for work today (day one) and that the planned changes were “fair,” with Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell telling the BBC services to the public were largely unaffected and most civil servants were working normally - including a majority of PCS members. 

 

Under the new system – set to kick off in April as a move to save a projected £500m - anyone in the civil service earning £30,000 or less will be entitled to a maximum of three years' pay or £60,000, whichever sum is lower. Redundancy is currently calculated on length of service, with a month's pay for every year worked; this means in practice those earning £30,000 or more will be paid an absolute maximum of two years' pay. The PCS counters that an employee with a 20-year service earning £24,000 a year could therefore lose as much as £20,000 as a result. 

 

The Government redundancy package has been agreed by five out of six unions - GMB, Prospect, Unite, FDA, and Prison Officers' Association.

 

But PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's very destabilising for our members, some of whom have worked for over 30 years for the public service, to suddenly realise they could lose their job and actually a large amount of money they would have depended on.” 

 

Jowell said the terms were better than in many private firms and that the “80% of all staff” earning under the £30,000 limit can still bank on between two and three years of salary.

 

The impact of the action will be felt – if at all – at UK ports and airports, while court cases may end up being delayed and driving tests cancelled at the last minute. On day one, there have been reports of some such effects, which may be felt more on day 2 (tomorrow Tuesday 9th March) in such environments as well as other government departments, museums and the Royal Courts of Justice.