Jobcentre staff could take strike action next year

The Public and Commercial Services Union is demanding better pay rises for more than 100,000 civil servants.

Voting was already planned among 86,000 PCS members at the Department for Work and Pensions over a 2.6% pay rise.

But co-ordinated ballots will now also be held at the Home Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Treasury Solicitors and the Prison Service.

The civil service could therefore be hit by the biggest industrial unrest in 10 years with more than 100,000 workers in different sections launching co-ordinated walkouts.

The ballot for industrial action will take place between 5 and 19 January, with the possibility of strikes at the end of the month bringing chaos to job centres, benefit offices, prisons, courts and the immigration service.

We shall be preparing for the eventuality of industrial action PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka

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 7,000 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 will vote on their pay offer, which union leaders say is worth 1%.

Also voting are 150 workers in the Treasury Solicitors.

The PCS said it had been left with no option by the "increasingly hard line" taken by government departments over pay rises, which it said were being imposed before staff had voted on whether to accept them.

Mr Serwotka is calling for a return to a national system of pay bargaining

General secretary Mark Serwotka said: "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.

"This is not a step we have taken lightly and we still hope there is an opportunity to sort out the deepening pay crisis."

Mr Serwotka is calling for a return to a national system of pay bargaining for the civil service.

One out of every four civil servants earned less than �13,750 a year, he said.

Imposing unsatisfactory pay deals had left members "incensed and angry", Mr Serwotka added.