Staff
in the Health and Safety Executive have voted in favour of a one-day strike
over pay, with the possibility of further industrial action.
A
breakdown in pay negotiations led to almost two-thirds of the 1,340 Public and
Commercial Services Union (PCS) members voting in favour of a one-day strike.
The
union claims the current pay offer would see more than a quarter of staff
getting a below-inflation pay increase, and some receiving only 0.5 per cent
increases for each of the next three years.
Mark
Serwotka, general secretary of PCS, said it was yet another example of
departments ‘hell bent’ on giving staff a real-term pay cut, and furthered the
pay crisis in the civil service.
Recently
there has been widespread industrial action in local government, with the PCS
claiming 80,000 civil servants had taken part.
