As many as 100,000 civil servants are set to go on strike this week with the
court system, passport control, benefits offices and pensions all facing
disruption.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) have voted in
favour of industrial action in five government departments after being offered
below-inflation pay rises.
Department for Work and Pensions and Prisons Service staff have already
indicated that if there is no prospect of a negotiated settlement, they will go
ahead with strike action on 29 and 30 January.
At the time of press, senior union officials in the Department for
Constitutional Affairs, the Home Office and the Treasury Solicitors Office,
were meeting up to decide what action to take following the outcome of the
ballots.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, said: "This is not a decision our
members have taken lightly. We have come up against increasingly belligerent
management in a number of departments who seem hell-bent on driving down pay.
"We are not talking about runaway pay increases," he adds.
"We are talking about money which is there, money that can start to deal
with the endemic problem of low pay in the civil service."
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