Britain into Strike: 100k Civil Servants to Join “Day of Action”

By Staff, Agencies

In the largest civil service strike that Britain witnessed for several years, at least 100,000 British civil servants will walk out as part of a coordinated national “day of action” next month.

The Public and Commercial Services union announced that its members from 124 government departments and other bodies will walk out on 1 February, in what the Trades Union Congress [TUC] has called a “national day of action”.

It signals a significant escalation of industrial action after a month of walkouts over pay, pensions, redundancy terms, and job security, and follows a walkout by 25,000 ambulance workers on Wednesday.

And it came as former Conservative health secretary branded Rishi Sunak’s attempt to crack down on strikes in the NHS an “extraordinary” waste of time. Stephen Dorrell, the Tory health secretary between 1995 and 1997, told The Independent that the Sunak government had made a series of “crucial” mistakes in the handling of the NHS pay dispute which has seen a wave of damaging strikes.

A further 33,000 members working in five more departments including HMRC are next week re-balloting to join the union’s national strike action.

There were warnings that a majority of state schools in England and Wales will shut their doors for several days in the coming months if the country’s biggest teaching union votes to strike.

The National Education Union [NEU] is said to expect its members to have voted in favor of taking mass industrial action when the ballot ends on Friday.

In Scotland, members of the Educational Institute of Scotland [EIS] members will walk out on 10 and 11 January, with Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association [SSTA] members on the second day.

Meanwhile, health unions announced they will refuse to submit evidence to the NHS pay review body for the next wage round while the current pay dispute remains unresolved.