AROUND 100,000 British civil servants across dozens of government departments have voted for strike action, a major union, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union has announced on Thursday, reports British newspaper, Mirror.
The union said it asked more than 150,000 government employees at 214 departments across the country whether to walk-out.
Publishing the results of the ballot, the PCS union said 126 had passed the threshold for strikes, including the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Strike action will reach “into every corner of public life”, the union said, with huge impacts on Job Centres, passport officers, and Border Force officials.
The union said that unless “substantial proposals” are received by the government by next Friday it will agree to a “programme of sustained industrial action”.
PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, 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.”
Mr Serwotka has previously described the action as the “most significant ballot for strike action in our history”.
It came after Boris Johnson threatened to reduce the size of the civil service by a fifth – reducing it to 2016 levels – with a headcount cut of 91,000.
Last week new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, abandoned the plans, but No10 warned that there will still be reductions in the civil service.
In an interview with the Mirror last month, Mr Serwotka said cost of living pressures had become “existential” and the government was forcing the least well off to pay the price for its mess.
On Wednesday it was also announced that NHS nurses had voted in favour of strike action for the first time in the 106-year history of the Royal College of Nursing.
General Secretary Pat Cullen had called it a “once in a generation chance to improve your pay and combat staff shortages” that put patients at risk.
