100,000 civil servants to join national TUC ‘day of action’ strike

PCS members from 124 government departments and other bodies will walk out on 1 February

At least 100,000 civil servants will walk out as part of a coordinated national “day of action” next month, the largest civil service strike for years.

The Public and Commercial Services union announced that its members from 124 government departments and other bodies will walk out on 1 February, in what the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called a “national day of action”.

It signals a significant escalation of industrial action after a month of walkouts over pay, pensions, redundancy terms, and job security, and follows a walkout by 25,000 ambulance workers on Wednesday.

And it came as former Conservative health secretary branded Rishi Sunak’s attempt to crack down on strikes in the NHS an “extraordinary” waste of time. Stephen Dorrell, the Tory health secretary between 1995 and 1997, told The Independent that the Sunak government had made a series of “crucial” mistakes in the handling of the NHS pay dispute which has seen a wave of damaging strikes.

A further 33,000 members working in five more departments including HMRC are next week re-balloting to join the union’s national strike action.

Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, said: “During the last month, when thousands of PCS members across a range of departments took sustained industrial action, the government said it had no money.

“But it managed to find millions of pounds to spend on managers and military personnel in a failed attempt to cover the vital work our members do.

“We warned the government our dispute would escalate if they did not listen – and we’re as good as our word.”

There were warnings that a majority of state schools in England and Wales will shut their doors for several days in the coming months if the country’s biggest teaching union votes to strike.

The National Education Union (NEU) is said to expect its members to have voted in favour of taking mass industrial action when the ballot ends on Friday.

In Scotland, members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) members will walk out on 10 and 11 January, with Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) members on the second day.

Meanwhile, health unions announced they will refuse to submit evidence to the NHS pay review body for the next wage round while the current pay dispute remains unresolved.

The 14 unions – representing more than one million ambulance staff, nurses and other NHS workers in England – have called on Mr Sunak’s government to engage directly in pay talks.

Unions have accused the government of “hiding behind” the independent pay review body, and believe the lengthy process is not able to deliver a deal to prevent industrial action.

They said that the deadline for submitting evidence for the 2022/23 pay year was the end of last January, but it was almost six months later when ministers made public their acceptance of the review body’s £1,400 flat-rate rise. By then inflation had “gone through the roof”, say unions. The unions have now decided against a formal collective submission to the pay review body this year, preferring the more direct approach of talks with ministers.

Elsewhere, the general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef said the rail disputes show no sign of reaching an agreement.

Mick Whelan told MPs on the Transport select committee: “We’re further away than when we started.”

He had been asked by Iain Stewart, the Conservative chair of the cross-party committee, to rate progress in negotiations.

Mr Stewart asked: “How close are we to having these disputes resolved, on a scale of one to 10 – whether with one, you remain on different planets, 10, I can go out and buy a hat for the wedding. Where are we?”

The Aslef boss said: “I think you include zero in your one to 10, and we’re further away than when we started.”