Up to 80,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), working for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), today begin a second two-day strike.
The strike over the imposition of a below-inflation pay offer will hit Jobcentres, benefits offices, the Pension Service and Child Support Agency (CSA).
The second two-day strike in the DWP follows a two-day stoppage on 6 and 7 December last year and comes against a backdrop of worsening industrial unrest across the civil service, as the government seeks 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 staff 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 only 24 pence 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 will cause significant disruption leading to some offices being closed and those remaining open offering little or no service to the public.
Below-inflation pay has also prompted strongly supported strike action in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), the Department for Transport, Driving Standards Agency (DSA), the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA), Highways Agency, Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) and Vehicle Certification Agency.
Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: ‘DWP management have enough money to guarantee every staff member an increase in line with inflation this year.
‘Instead they are choosing to squander over £80 million on bonuses and reward people with a nought per cent pay rise.
‘Staff who have struggled to provide a service against a backdrop of savage cuts, and who now face an additional 12,000 job cuts, feel betrayed and insulted by having a pay cut in real terms imposed on them.
‘It is completely unacceptable that the department and the government should so actively seek to drive down the wages of some of the lowest paid in the public sector by imposing increases that take their pay to just 24 pence above the minimum wage.
‘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.
‘The department and the government cannot continue to foster a culture of poverty pay and need to start paying its own workforce a fair and just wage.’
