The first of a series of co-ordinated national strikes in protest at coalition government budget cuts is expected to take place at the end of next month, with more than a million public servants due to take part.
The UK’s largest civil service union the Public and Commercial Services Union is expected to vote overwhelmingly to ballot for the strike action at its annual conference in Brighton today.
Mark Serwotka, the PCS’s general secretary, will say: “This coming year is the most important year in our history as we face battles over jobs, privatisation, pensions, pay and our terms and conditions.”
To ensure that the walk-out has the maximum impact, however, the union is also pressing for talks with other unions to coordinate industrial action. The PCS has already persuaded three teaching unions – the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers – to ballot their members over taking part in the proposed national strike, the first since 1979.
The first walk-out is due to take place on 30 June and is expected to lead to the widespread closure of key government services, including almost every school in England. But it will also be followed by a series of other national strikes over the coming months.
If industrial action is voted through, the PCS will send out ballot papers next week. The NUT and the ATL, traditionally seen as the most moderate of the teaching unions, are likewise due to start balloting their own members within days.
Union leaders are particularly angry about the two-year public sector pay freeze for those earning £21,000 or more, proposed cuts to pensions and threats to jobs as a result of redundancy.
