Union threatens strike action over civil service job cuts

Britain's largest civil service union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), will ballot 290,000 members next month for a one-day national strike in protest at government plans to axe over 100,000 civil and public service jobs.

The ballot, which is planned to run from October 1 to October 22, could lead to strike action on November 5, the union said.

PCS officials that the move was in response to massive government cuts which would "decimate public services and undermine services delivered to all sections of society".

Winter fuel, pension and benefit payments, tax credits, tax collection and the protection of UK shores from illegal contraband would all be hit by the 24-hour action.

The union said that the government was wrong to assume that it could "simply cut backroom staff without it affecting services" as civil servants work together as a team.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary for PCS, said that such a ballot would be "the biggest in a generation involving the whole of the civil service".

"The people the government are seeking to axe aren't bowler-hatted Sir Humphries or faceless bureaucrats, they provide vital services that touch everybody's lives from cradle to grave," he said.

"They work as a team delivering the things we take for granted, such as your driving licence, passport or child benefit and any divide between the frontline and backline is a false one."

He added: "Which is why, whilst the government and main political parties are engaging in a crude game of who can cut the most with little thought of the impact, we are standing up for public services and the people who deliver them, urging the government to reflect and rethink."

(gmcg/mb)