Some 33,000 UK civil servants voted to strike over pay, and will join 100,000 other government workers planning a walkout in the middle of next month.
(Bloomberg) — Some 33,000 UK civil servants voted to strike over pay, and will join 100,000 other government workers planning a walkout in the middle of next month.
Employees from the HM Revenue and Customs, Companies House and the Care Quality Commission voted to strike, the Public and Commercial Services Union said on Tuesday in a statement. It’s a shift in stance after the same union members failed to reach the voting thresholds needed to take action when they were balloted last November in response to pay rises of about 3%.
The March 15 industrial action is timed to coincide with Jeremy Hunt’s annual budget, and piles further pressure on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give ground in a series of long-running disputes with public sector workers from nurses to tax officials. Unions are calling for pay deals that keep pace with double-digit inflation, but Hunt argues if he’s too generous, he risks perpetuating rising prices.
Teachers, junior doctors and London Underground subway workers also plan to strike on budget day.
But economists said Monday that Britain’s outlook has improved enough to hand Hunt an extra £10 billion ($12.1 billion) at next month’s budget, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Tuesday pushed back against the government’s claim that public sector pay rises would fuel inflation.
“They might have hoped we’d go away if they buried their heads in the sand, but they’ve under-estimated the determination of our members, who were praised for keeping the country running during the pandemic but now taken for granted,” PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said in the statement. “Our members have had enough. Unless ministers put more money on the table, our strikes will continue to escalate.”
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