Benton Park View strike action extended until 14 March
PCS members at Benton Park View in Newcastle will take a further 4 weeks of strike action in defence of 3 reps from their branch who were unfairly dismissed for their trade union activity.
Our union's national disputes committee today agreed to extend the strike, which started on 23 December and had been due to run until 14 February.
Members working in Employer Services on the site will continue to take strike action throughout the period unless HMRC is willing to enter into talks aimed at resolving the dispute.
Huge backlogs
The action taken so far has led to members still at work in the branch reporting huge backlogs of work far above ministerial targets for processing.
Massive call queues
Members also report calls being received from agents who would usually have called the Employer Services (ES) Helpline but who have become frustrated by long waits and even calls being blocked due to the volumes of outstanding calls. Members on these lines who aren’t trained to deal with these calls have had to either transfer calls to the already overwhelmed ES helpline.
Undertrained cover
Members also report the cover offered by those drafted into Employer Services whilst doing their best to provide a service are undertrained to provide the help needed and often are only able to offer these customers callbacks at a later date.
HMRC should start talks to end the dispute
Members are determined to win this dispute and it’s clear that R&C need to come to the table and enter into talks to end this dispute. Members have told their reps they’re willing to take the action needed to win this dispute so unless the employer is willing to see more disruption to their customers and more ministerial targets missed, now is the time to get around the table and resolve the dispute.