“We’ve tried talking but it appears the only option open to us is to force them to change their mind, and the only way we can do that is to escalate our strike action.”
Mark Serwotka, PCS Union General Secretary
By the PCS Union
PCS hoped this morning’s meeting, a day after our national executive committee voted to call a one-day strike on of around 100,000 PCS members on 1 February, would address pay as well as job protection, redundancy payments and pension contributions.
However, following the meeting, general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This meeting was a total farce. Despite being well-trailed by the government as a chance to resolve the crisis, it was nothing of the sort because the minister had nothing to offer.
“He didn’t deny our members were being offered less than anyone else, he didn’t deny tens of thousands of our members only get a pay rise because of the rise in the National Minimum Wage but he refused to give us a pay rise now.
“Despite all we told him, despite knowing the alternative would be sustained industrial action, he still refused to budge, saying he could only talk about 2023-24.
“We will not stand by and watch our members be condemned to low pay. We’ve tried talking but it appears the only option open to us is to force them to change their mind, and the only way we can do that is to escalate our strike action.
“Because of the minister’s refusal to help us now, the one-day strike we announced yesterday will go ahead as promised on February 1, and we shall look to escalate our action further, calling more members out on more strikes until the government listens to us.”
- This article was originally published by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) on January 12th, 2023.
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