Union chiefs have announced their first in a surge of walkouts at the Department for Work and Pensions as employees walk out for two weeks over Christmas.
About 200 benefits staff will down tools between December 19 and 30 at three Jobcentres in Liverpool and a back office in Doncaster.
The union expects it to disrupt benefit ‘conditionality’ interviews which would usually lead to sanctions.
The Public and Commercial Services union walkout is over nine days, December 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30 and 31.
PCS officials said the targeted action would cover only a fraction of the union’s DWP members, but more dates are likely to follow in its bid for a 10 per cent pay rise.
It comes after more than 100,000 civil servant members of the PCS voted for strike action at 126 government bodies.
The union has already announced 12 days of rolling strike action at National Highways over Christmas and New Year, a month of strike action across 250 sites of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the Rural Payments Agency.
Dates for the Passport Office and Border Force, where troops could be drafted in to cover for striking employees, are likely to be announced in the forthcoming weeks.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said that their members have been plunged into ever-increasing depths of deprivation and that people shouldn’t have to depend on food banks to feed their children or be forced to make the choice of either working from home because the travel to work is too costly or working in the cold under blankets because the price of heating is too expensive.
He said it’s a disgrace that their members in the DWP, the government’s own workers are claiming the benefits they pay out to others.
The DWP has been contacted for comment.
It came as the Fire Brigades Union opened its first vote for firefighter walkouts over pay in almost 20 years.
Up to 33,500 firefighters and control staff will vote between now and January 30 after rejecting a 5 per cent pay proposal.
FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said that strike action would always be a last resort, but that they were running out of options.
He said that numerous firefighters and control staff were frantic, with some struggling to afford to live and that it was terrifying and an extremely serious state of affairs.
The trouble is, the Tories only seem to find money for the wealthy, and the country is being run by millionaires and they just don’t care, and ultimately, there will be a general strike all over the board, and it’s going to happen, maybe not this week or next week, but it will happen!
There’s something ironic about these guys that dish out benefits and sanctions and now they’re striking – what a joke!
Our troops and volunteers won’t even make a dent, even if they do drive the ambulances to A&E they won’t be able to hand them over and go, they will have to wait until there are enough staff, beds and trolleys available. It will only be then perhaps that they will acknowledge the enormity of the job! And let’s face it, that’s not a walkout, it’s a two-week Christmas holiday.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 