Strike threat over pay-out dispute

The Government is facing a series of national strikes by hundreds of thousands of civil servants in the run–up to the general election in a bitter row over cuts to compensation payments.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said it will ballot its 270,000 members — including Rochdale members — with walkouts by customs and immigration officers, jobcentre and benefit workers, museum staff and tax officers threatened from early March.

The union’s leader Mark Serwotka launched an angry attack on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, accusing him of trying to look macho by slashing payouts to low-paid public sector workers.

The union will also launch legal action today, saying it had a good case to challenge what it believed was an illegal act by the Government in changing the civil service compensation scheme.

The Prime Minister last year personally announced the changes, which the union said would lead to voluntary and redundancy payments being cut by a third, leaving long–serving staff facing the loss of thousands of pounds.

A worker on a salary of £24,000 who has worked for the civil service for over 20 years would have redundancy pay cut by over £20,000, said the PCS.

Ballot papers will be issued tomorrow and voting will end on February 25, with the first action likely to be a two–day strike on 8-9 or 11-12 March if there is a yes vote.

Talks with Government officials have broken down and the union said it now had no option but to press ahead with plans for what threatens to be the most disruptive campaign of industrial action in the civil service for years.

Mr Serwotka said: “Workers are being robbed of their accrued rights so it is no wonder they feel so angry. The Government is ripping up contracts and is showing shameful double standards by being tough on the low paid but letting highly-paid bankers off the hook by allowing them to keep their contractual rights to huge bonuses.”

The PCS is planning a two–day national strike, followed by a rolling programme of action to target areas such as the justice system and ports and airports, to cause maximum disruption.

Union members will lobby every single MP’s surgery at the end of February followed by a national demonstration in Westminster and officials have not ruled out industrial action being held on polling day.

More than 130 MPs have signed a Commons motion opposing the changes, including 97 Labour MPs.

The Government will lay an order in Parliament on Friday paving the way for the cuts, which will take effect from April for voluntary redundancies and from April, 2011, for compulsory layoffs, said the union.