PCS members on strike at BEIS, photo Helen Pattison (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
There was another lively picket outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in London on 13 February. The staff, PCS members, are outsourced on contracts that pay poverty wages. They want to be brought back in-house and paid a living wage.
One striker from the catering department said a meeting was annoyed they wouldn’t be served tea and coffee during the strike. But she said she was annoyed to be working and living in one of the richest and most expensive cities on poverty wages.
PCS has grown out of the strike, recruiting new members on strike for the first time. One first-time striker said she had joined PCS because she realised they would have to fight to get decent pay and conditions.
