The largest union representing civil service workers has announced it will launch a national strike ballot of 160,000 civil servants and other public service officials.
PCS said it has decided to hold the ballot in 171 government departments and public bodies after the government failed to meet its demands over pay, pensions justice and job protection.
The ballot will cover all government departments including the Cabinet Office, Acas, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, and the Supreme Court.
The PCS last month gave the Cabinet Office a deadline of 5 March for ministers to make an acceptable offer or face a dispute and potential strike action.
Among the union’s demands are an inflation-proofed increase plus a degree of pay restoration and pay equality across departments. The union is seeking a living wage of £15 per hour minimum; London weighting of £5k minimum; a minimum 35 days of annual leave and a shortening of the working week. It wants to agree measures to deal with low pay, particularly the impact of statutory rises in the national minimum wage eradicating the civil service grading structure at the three most junior grades.
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Minister for the Cabinet Office John Glen has already turned down the request for a shorter working week for civil servants with the same pay. He said: “the emerging evidence for a four-day working week is slim at best”.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “We warned the government that our national campaign would continue if our demands were not met.
“We won pay rises last year of up to 5% for all our members, plus a one-off cost-of-living payment of £1,500. We told ministers we expected at least inflation-proof pay rises this year, but so far they have refused to commit to even that.
“Our members showed last year they were prepared to take sustained strike action – the government can expect more of the same this year if they don’t meet our demands and treat our hard-working members with the respect they deserve.”
The ballot will run from 18 March to 13 May and will include all of PCS’s members working across the UK in the civil service and its related areas, except for those working in devolved organisations in Scotland. The Scottish government agreed a two-year settlement on pay and jobs last year.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “It would be premature to ballot members on industrial action while ongoing discussions on the civil service pay remit guidance take place.
“To ensure that these talks are productive, we encourage unions to continue to engage with officials as part of the usual process. This year’s pay remit guidance will be published in due course and we will continue dialogue with unions.”
The PCS has urged all members to take part in the ballot so that it beats the 50% legal threshold for strike action.
A special NEC meeting will be held on 15 May to consider the results.
The PCS pointed out that the Cabinet Office generally publishes the civil service pay remit guidance annually on 31 March, adding it was “important to send a signal to the employer that we are serious about moving to industrial action to get them to meet our demands through the remit guidance process”.
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