Civil servants working across multiple government agencies vote for strike action
Around 100,000 civil servants, working in multiple government agencies, have voted to strike in a dispute over pay, pensions and jobs.
As PA Media reports, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said the legal threshold for industrial action had been reached in 126 separate areas, covering workers including driving test examiners, border force officials and Jobcentre staff.
The PCS said that unless it received “substantial proposals” from the government, it would draw up plans at a meeting on 18 November for a programme of industrial action.
Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, said:
The government must look at the huge vote for strike action across swathes of the civil service and realise it can no longer treat its workers with contempt.
Our members have spoken and if the government fails to listen to them, we’ll have no option than to launch a prolonged programme of industrial action reaching into every corner of public life.
Civil servants have willingly and diligently played a vital role in keeping the country running during the pandemic but enough is enough.
The stress of working in the civil service, under the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis, job cuts and office closures means they’ve reached the end of their tethers.
We are calling on the government to respond positively to our members’ demands. They have to give our members a 10% pay rise, job security, pensions justice and protected redundancy terms.
Britain faces a further round of strikes. Civil servants working in multiple government agencies have voted to go on strike, teachers in Scotland have also voted overwhelmingly for industrial action, and train drivers have announced a further rail strike on Saturday 26 November (see 1.22pm).
Rishi Sunak has been meeting Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, at the British-Irish Council gathering in Blackpool. (See 9.28am.) This is from UTV’s Tracey Magee.
Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, has expressed concern about reports that Sunak will shelve Boris Johnson’s plan to impose a cap on social care costs. (See 2.35pm.)
(L-R): Nicola Sturgeon, Jeremy Hunt (on screen), Mark Drakeford (on screen), Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak holding a meeting in Blackpool, where the the British Irish Council summit is being held. Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images
'Mood music' between London and Brussels has improved under Sunak, says EU ambassador
João Vale de Almeida, the outgoing EU ambassador to the UK, has said the “mood music” between London and Brussels has improved under Rishi Sunak.
Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Vale de Almeida said that after Brexit, relations between Britain and the EU were particularly poor. He said:
Contact between leaders and intimacy has been lacking.
We’ve had more summits with China than we have had with the UK. There have been none. That’s not normal. These people need to share their WhatsApp numbers.
But, commenting on the change since Sunak became prime minister, he said:
The mood music has changed, the melody is nicer but we still don’t have the words of a new British song.
The two sides are still at loggerheads over the future of the Northern Ireland protocol. Vale de Almeida said they were “not that far apart”, but he did not suggest that a deal was imminent. Describing the state of negotiations, he said:
There are always talks about talks and real talks — we are somewhere in between. We’re not that far apart. We need now to focus on the landing zone.
And Keir Starmer also said Matt Hancock should quit I’m a Celebrity and get back to Westminster. Speakign on his BBC Radio Humberside phone-in, Starmer said he felt “very strongly” about this. “[Hancock] should voluntarily leave and get back to parliament and do his job,” Starmer said. He went on:
It is not as if he is some great guy, anyway. This isn’t a guy who rolled up his sleeves and was a champion of the nation. His reputation was pretty bad before he even started on this.
Keir Starmer has said it was “inappropriate” for Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, to call Jeremy Corbyn “senile” in the Commons yesterday.
Asked about the incident in a phone-in on BBC Radio Humberside, Starmer said:
I’m not going to pretend that what Wes Streeting said wasn’t anything other than inappropriate. I know that; Wes Streeting knows that. He’s apologised. It was in jest, but both Wes and I know that’s not good enough.
Starmer dismissed suggestions it should be a resignation matter. He said there was a “world of difference” between what Streeting said and the words of Gavin Williamson, the former minister, putting security at risk and telling an official to slit their throat.
Rishi Sunak vositing the Advanced Technology centre at Fylde College in Blackpool before the British Irish Council summit. Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images
Back to the proposed nurses’ strike, and Ben Zaranko, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, has posted a thread on Twitter showing how nurses’ pay has been falling behind over the past decade.
With strikes on the horizon, here's a bit of context on what's been happening to average nurse pay in England.
Since 2010, nurses' pay (the purple line) has lagged behind inflation, and behind average pay growth in both the public and private sectors. pic.twitter.com/FKiNDxlzq0
Since August 2010, the earnings of an average nurse have increased by about 20% in cash terms. Over the same period, prices increased by 32%, average private sector pay by 41%, and average public sector pay by 28%.
Average real-terms nurse earnings fell by 9.4% in that time.
This is one (big) reason why we're getting strikes. But it also exemplifies why public sector pay restraint (i.e. real-terms pay cuts for public sector workers as part of an overall spending squeeze) is harder to impose now than it was in 2010.
Labour’s Kate Green has formally resigned as an MP, setting up a byelection in the safe seat of Stretford and Urmston. She is going to become deputy mayor of Greater Manchester, replacing Bev Hughes, who announced yesterday she is retiring.
Keir Starmer is wary of wholeheartedly backing unions that go on strike, on the grounds that Labour wants to be in government and that it’s the government’s job to resolve strikes, and not simply to side with the employees. But some Labour MPs are much more willing to back the workers.
Here are tweets from four Labour backbenchers, all on the left of the party, who are supporting the PCS strike.
From Dan Carden
Solidarity with @pcs_union members who have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over cuts to civil service pay and pensions.
The UK government has said it intends to minimise disruption to services if civil servants go ahead with their planned strike. Responding to the news the PCS members have voted for industrial action (see 1.28pm), a government spokesperson said:
We regret this decision and remain in regular discussion with unions and staff.
As the public would expect, we have plans in place to keep essential services running and minimise any potential disruption if strikes do go ahead.
The public sector pay awards are a careful balance between delivering value for money for the taxpayer and recognising the importance of public sector workers.
The Scottish Labour party has blamed the decision by teachers in Scotland to vote for strike action (see 3.06pm) on SNP mismanagement. Michael Marra, Scottish Labour’s education spokesperson, said:
Years of SNP mismanagement and neglect are at the root of this decisive result.
Teachers have been going above and beyond to deliver the education recovery children and young people so badly need, and this should be recognised.
No-one wants strikes in schools, but pupils and teachers alike are being failed by the SNP’s catastrophic lack of leadership.
The education secretary needs to get round the table with a fair deal for teachers and for schools before strike chaos hits.
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