10 December 2022
PCS members across the country are fighting for better pay. Photo Workers.
Government workers are taking industrial action this month in support of their claim for better pay. Responsible for delivering essential public services, their pay has been capped by government policy for years.
Strikes are taking place across several government departments by members of Public and Civil Service Union (PCS). Border Force passport control workers will be on strike over the Christmas period at six of the busiest airports in Britain – London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow – as well as Newhaven ferry port.
Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) workers, including driving test examiners, will be on strike in a rolling regional campaign – beginning on 13 December in Scotland and lasting into early January in London.
Rural Payments Agency staff based in Newcastle, Cumbria and Wales begin a series of strikes from the same date, with National Highways traffic officers following three days later.
Campaign
The PCS campaign is about job retention as well as pay. Strikes at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) are beginning from 19 December at offices faced with closure – one in Doncaster and three in Liverpool.
PCS made a claim at the start of 2022 for a 10 per cent cost of living increase and other improvements. The cost of living has increased sharply since then. Most civil servant earn less than £30,000 a year and around 1 in 10 earn less than £20,000.
The PCS campaign has been building over the course of the year. It is about pay in the long term and jobs as well. This reflects the reality for workers that annual set piece pay rounds are no longer the norm. PCS has begun action in a tactical way, from areas of strength and not over-extending, learning from the experience elsewhere.
Trade union laws
Although the Treasury controls the purse strings, pay negotiations in the civil service take place in over 200 bargaining units. That also means balloting in each area, and not being able to take industrial action anywhere the vote falls short of the high threshold set by the 2016 Trade Union Act – a 50 per cent turnout of those eligible to vote and a majority of those voting in favour.
This array of employers might be a strength for the union if it can secure good terms in those workplaces where organisation is strong and use that as leverage. But that’s far from certain. Not only does the government dictate what individual departments can offer, but PCS failed to secure a 50 per cent turnout in three of the five main departments.
In HM Revenue & Customs, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Defence a majority voted for strike action, but fewer than half of eligible union members voted. Together with DWP and the Home Office, those departments comprise around 68 per cent of the civil service workforce. In the smaller departments and agencies all bar a small handful were in favour of action, but around 90 failed to get a big enough turnout.
‘Civil servants feel they need to take action on pay.’
There is no doubt that there is a strong feeling among civil service workers that they need to take action about their pay. Taken as a whole over half of the membership voted and over 85 per cent of those who did were in favour of action.
PCS will hold another ballot in HMRC at least – and it will have to hold further ballots every six months in the case of a protracted dispute, which seems likely.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka put the onus on government to come up with a response. After the ballot result was announced, he said that concrete proposals could avoid strike action.
Hard line
Instead the government is taking a hard line. As well as threatening all workers with even more restrictive trade union legislation and limitations on strike action, it now says that an increase in civil service pay would be unaffordable. That’s been the line from all governments since the 2008 financial crisis.
As with the RCN nurses’ dispute, the campaign of misinformation has begun. Cabinet Office minster Jeremy Quinn said that meeting the PCS claim would cost every household around £1,000. He used a figure higher than the claim and projected that across the whole public sector.
The government is also reportedly planning to use military personnel to cover for striking workers, particularly at border controls. At least some in the army are not happy with that. Soldiers too have been subject to pay restraint and may be asked to cover other workers in dispute as well as the Border Force.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said when announcing the first round of strikes, “Some sections of the media have accused us of playing politics with these strikes...our dispute is with the employer. We will fight to improve our members’ pay, terms and conditions regardless of who is in Downing Street.”