13/10/2008

CRB Staff Begin 'Work-To-Rule' Industrial Action

Hundreds of members of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) are to start a 'work-to-rule' in protest against a 0.5% pay rise.

Up to 450 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union at the organisation are expected to take action at the Liverpool-based CRB at the cost of living pay rise when inflation is running at 4.8%.

Staff across England and Wales have been urged to refuse to work overtime and not to exceed targets for processing criminal record checks. Currently, these checks take less than four weeks, but could take more than eight weeks as a result of the action.

The protest comes as a strike ballot involving 270,000 PCS members strike over the Government's public sector pay policy.

This year has already seen pay strikes affect jobcentres, passports, immigrations and coastguards across the UK.

A CRB spokesman said: "The CRB does not expect that the planned industrial action by PCS union members at the CRB from Monday 13 October will have any significant impact on its ability to deliver its service to its customers.

"The CRB will remain open for business as usual."

(JM)

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