Jobcentre staff could take strike action next year

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union is to ballot 86,000 members in January over a 2.6% pay rise.

Workers are also unhappy at a new bonus scheme which they claim will penalise people for taking time off.

The union warned that workers in other government departments were also expected to reject their respective pay deals.

It claims the new bonus scheme would penalise staff who take time off to have a baby, care for a sick relative, attend funerals or serve with the Territorial Army.

Legal advice

The PCS says it is seeking legal advice over the bonus scheme.

Civil servants in the Home Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs, National Archive Office and Prison Service will also vote on industrial action over separate pay offers.

The civil service could therefore be hit by the biggest industrial unrest in ten years with more than 100,000 workers in different sections launching co-ordinated walkouts.

The 2.6% pay rise was imposed just days before a ballot of Department of Work and Pensions staff resulted in a massive rejection of the deal.

The ballot for industrial action will take place between 5 and 19 January, with the possibility of strikes at the end of the month.

Mark Serwotka, of the PCS, said the 2.6% offer was derisory

Staff on flexitime could take "guerrilla action" by finishing work earlier without any warning, causing disruption to the running of the department, it was claimed.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "This is not a step we have taken lightly, but it seems that by imposing a discriminatory and derisory pay offer management are hell bent on engineering a dispute.

"Their approach has been high handed and will do nothing to end the endemic low pay that is rife in the department and nothing to motivate the thousands of people working on the frontline, providing services to people from the cradle to the grave."

He added that it was ironic that the 2.6% rise was imposed last month on the same day as union leaders were meeting the government at a newly-formed public services forum aimed at improving relations between the two sides.

Not best practice

About 8,500 civil servants at the Home Office are to decide on a pay offer said by the union to be worth 1.3%, although ministers insist it would increase salaries by 5.7%.

Another 6,500 civil servants at the Department for Constitutional Affairs will vote over the next few weeks on a pay offer said by the union to be worth up to 2.8%, while 4,500 workers in the Prison Service are expected to vote in the New Year on their pay offer, which union leaders say is worth 1%.

Mr Serwotka said efforts would be made to try to resolve the pay disputes, adding: "We will be leaving no stone unturned to try to reach a settlement, but in the meantime we shall be preparing for the eventuality of industrial action."

Employment Relations Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said the imposition of the 2.6% pay rise was not an example of best practice.

He said would write to other ministers about their internal employment procedures, adding: "It is important that internally, our employment relations procedures match what we want others to do."