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Scottish civil servants strike over fair pay

31 July 2008

PCS, Scotland's largest civil service union has called on its 5000 members who work in Scottish Government and Registers of Scotland to strike today (Thursday 31 July).

This marks the beginning of a campaign to win fair pay rises in the face of John Swinney’s public sector pay policy which caps increases at 2%.

On the day that local authority unions, Unison, Unite and the GMB, complete their ballot for strike action against the same policy, central Government workers begin their strike campaign.

The key work of Ministers is expected to be disrupted not only today (31 July), but it will be seriously affected in the longer term as the union begins an overtime ban and work-to-rule from tomorrow (1 August).

The strike action, overtime ban, and work-to-rule in Registers of Scotland will also seriously interrupt land registration throughout Scotland.

PCS is also now balloting its members in the Sheriff and High Courts, and the Procurator Fiscals’ Department who, if they vote to join the strike campaign later, would bring Scotland’s justice system to a halt.

As momentum continues to build towards the first ever potential joint strike of local authority workers and civil servants later in August, Eddie Reilly, PCS Scottish Secretary called on Scottish Government Ministers to come out of hiding, saying: 

"It’s time for Salmond and Swinney to come out of hiding and face up to their own workers. They have adopted the same pay policy as Westminster to hold back public sector pay increases to 2% with inflation now running at 4.6%.

"Their miserly pay offer to our members who earn £16,000 per year means a pay increase of only 4.20 per week. Low paid workers won’t accept that.

"Ministers can’t complain about raging inflation as they did in the Glasgow East by-election and then make derisory pay offers to their own low-paid workers”.

 

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