Industrial
action at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), including this week’s strike,
has been suspended by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.
The union’s
Group Executive Committee called off the strikes following detailed
negotiations and a decision by the DWP to revise its pay offer and enter into
negotiations with PCS over the future of its performance development system. Negotiations
will take place in the next two weeks.
Mark
Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "The DWP has shown that by engaging
with the union the possibility of a positive way forward may be found. We now
have a basis on which we can talk constructively."
However,
the two-day strikes on 29 and 30 January involving nearly 20,000 staff working
in courts, prisons, the Home Office and the Treasury Solicitors Office are
still set to go ahead.
