Lanarkshire civil servants stage walk-out

Mar 19 2008

HUNDREDS of civil servants across Lanarkshire this week took part in a two-day strike.

The Public and Commercial Services Union said the action was in prompted by a dispute over pay.

Job centres and benefits offices across the county operated with a skeleton staff, causing disruption.

Over 1000 Lanarkshire PCS members working for the Department of Work and Pensions stayed away from their work on Monday and Tuesday after they were offered a below-inflation pay offer.

Hamilton’s Jobcentre Plus office in Almada Street operated on both days with seven staff, mainly made up of senior management.

The second two-day strike in the DWP follows a two-day stoppage in December.

Workers say it comes against a backdrop of worsening industrial unrest across the Civil Service as the government seek to cap pay to below inflation across the civil and public services.

Staff are angry over the imposition of a three-year pay offer which sees workers receiving zero per cent this year.

The pay offer averages just one per cent a year over the three years and sees the lowest-paid receiving increases which take their wage to 24p above the minimum wage.

The starting salary for an Administrative Assistant in the DWP is £12,500.

With the previous two-day stoppage receiving the strongest-ever support across the DWP, the union warned that the latest strike would cause significant disruption, leading to some offices being closed and those which remained open offering little or no service to the public.

Stewart Dalley, PCS DWP Scottish regional secretary. said: “The office in Hamilton had its doors open but there only seven members of staff.

“They would be telling people to come back on Wednesday.”

He added: “The action has been very successful, with 90 per cent. of our members taking part in the two-day strike.

“A zero per cent increase is just unacceptable and at the end of the three years we will actually be nine per cent worse off.

“Staff at the forefront of delivering the lowest unemployment in a generation deserve better and will not tolerate being used by the government as an anti-inflationary tool, especially when there is no evidence to suggest that their pay fuels inflation.“