ONS workers balloted on taking further industrial action

More than a thousand Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members at the Office for National Statistics are looking to take more industrial action after being ordered to come into the office two days a week.

The 1,179 workers based in Newport in South Wales, Titchfield in Hampshire, London, Darlington, Manchester and Edinburgh, have since May refused to follow an instruction to spend at least 40% of their time in the office and recently refused to work overtime, out of hours and out of grade.

With their six-month strike mandate running out next month, the union is balloting members for a new mandate to allow their action to continue.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Management’s mandatory workplace attendance regime does nothing to improve productivity but everything to disrupt the lives of ONS staff, who were led to believe they could continue to work from home indefinitely.

“Our ongoing action has allowed our members to continue those flexible arrangements without damaging the organisation’s outputs.

“The employer’s continuing refusal to talk to us, however, means we need to ballot members again to increase the pressure for a sensible, negotiated outcome.”  

The ballot ends on October 1.

ends