Civil service union plans national strike

Civil service union plans national strike

Millions of taxpayers are to be asked to send money owed to HM Revenue & Customs early in an attempt by the government to beat the threat of the first national strike in Whitehall for nearly 20 years.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) announces today a ballot of 280,000 civil servants to vote for a year of disruptive action across Whitehall over pay, compulsory redundancies and the privatisation of services. The ballot is expected by the union to lead to a big "yes" vote and could lead to widespread disruption and direct confrontation with the government not seen since Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

The PCS is targeting the collection of billions of pounds of tax due by January 31 to deprive Gordon Brown of revenue as a protest against his decision to increase the number of job cuts and accelerate the outsourcing of public services. With 10m tax returns due by Jan 31, and 2m normally arriving just before the deadline, the union wants to wreck tax collection by getting staff to walk out soon after the ballot result is declared on January 23.

HM Revenue & Customs told the Guardian that it planned to take pre-emptive action by asking people either to send in tax returns early or pay online to avoid any human contact in tax collection. They will also waive any automatic £100 fine for not meeting the deadline if taxpayers can prove they posted their cheques in time.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said:.....continued below

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"There will be disruptive action across a whole series of services, including the delivery of benefits, tax credits, driving tests, museums, and immigration, and Customs & Excise and it will take place over the next year.

"We also intend to use our new political fund to campaign against cuts and the pay offer during the election campaign for the next Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly in May. We shall be drawing attention to the views of candidates who support cuts."

Relations between the government and the union, which represents more than half of the 554,000 civil servants, have become increasingly strained. There have been one-day stoppages and work-to-rule action in the Ministry of Defence, Driving Standards Agency, magistrates' courts and museums last year over individual pay claims and the privatisation of services.

But now the union wants to accelerate the action after the Treasury made it clear that it would try to hold annual pay rises to below 2% - which is below the inflation rate - and would start introducing compulsory redundancies. Gordon Brown has also said he wants more than 84,000 job cuts in Whitehall in the next three years.

The trigger for the dispute appears to have come from an exchange of letters between Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, and all the Whitehall unions.

Sir Gus warned that he could give no guarantee over compulsory redundancies, privatisation or pay rises. "The public, rightly, expect us to identify ways of delivering services more effectively, and they expect us to offer the taxpayer value for money. We can be no more immune from these pressures than any other organisation, public or private."

On a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, he said: "That is not something any responsible employer of our size and complexity could, or would, do. I hope you will reflect very carefully before calling for industrial action on any of these issues."