Civil servants to strike on 15 October


From a PCS press release:

Almost a quarter of a million civil servants will take part in 72 hours of action in the public sector by striking on Wednesday 15 October.

The 24-hour walkout is being coordinated with industrial action by unions in the health service on Monday 13 October and in local government on Tuesday 14 October, and comes ahead of the TUC’s Britain Needs a Pay Rise demo in London on Saturday 18 October.

The focus of the strikes is pay, with wages frozen for two years after 2010 and subsequently capped at 1%, and they follow the joint public sector strike on 10 July.

Since 2010, taking into account pay cuts, the increase in monthly pension contributions and inflation, many civil servants have suffered a 20% cut in their incomes.

The action will include employees of Westminster government departments and agencies, and the Wales assembly, but not those who work in bodies under the jurisdiction of the Scottish government.

At the Labour party conference yesterday (23 September), the PCS launched a new report by tax expert Richard Murphy that shows tax evasion now deprives the public finances of £80 billion a year. Collecting even a fraction of these stolen billions would change the debate about public spending overnight.