Met Police staff plan six more days of strike

Metropolitan Police staff are due to walk out for six more days this month in a row over pay.

The planned strike involves 175 members of the Unite union, including call handlers recording crime reports, as well as technicians and office staff who help service and dispatch police vehicles.

Trade union Unite said Met police staff had been offered "an inferior pay increase" compared to the 4.2% increase that other staff and officers in UK police forces had received.

The Met said in a "shrinking" organisation "with a £260m budget gap" it could not justify spending millions to give staff the £1,250 award "as they don't face the same recruitment and retention challenges as officers".

The action is due to run from 19 to 24 January, following a previous strike on New Year's Eve which Unite said "caused major disruption including delays in call-outs".

Unite regional officer Keith Henderson described the first strike on New Year's Eve, which began at 06:00 on 31 December and ran for 25 hours, as "hugely successful and disruptive".

He added: "The force will hugely struggle to cope with several days' worth of action, but the Met must revise its pay offer to one acceptable to our members to prevent this from happening."

The Met said it would try to minimise the impact by backfilling key staff roles with officers but "insufficient resource in areas including our 999 call centres and custody suites could put the public at risk".

The union also said workers had been offered an "inferior pay rise for 2025-26, despite Met police officers being given a 4.2% pay rise in September 2025".

It added that across the UK, both officers and staff had received the 4.2% increase without changes to their contracts.

Union members have rejected two provisional offers, either a below-RPI pay increase of 3.8% or a 4.2% offer, which is conditional on workers relinquishing their current terms and conditions.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "It is completely wrong that our members at the Met are the only police staff in the UK that have not had a pay rise.

"It is immoral to tell them that in order to get the same pay increase as their counterparts elsewhere they will be expected to accept worse conditions."

A Met Police spokesperson added: "While we genuinely value officers and staff equally, pay and allowances are completely different, reflecting the fundamental differences in roles, responsibilities and expectations.

"We have made a reasonable alternative offer to the trade unions to settle the dispute and remain open to finding a solution."

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