PCS demands urgent talks with Cabinet Office ahead of five-week Passport Office strike

Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary Mark Serwotka has written to the minister for the Cabinet Office asking him to “redress the insulting approach of the government to PCS members” by starting negotiations.

The union met with Jeremy Quin MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office, on January 12. Since then PCS members have taken an unprecedented amount of strike action in support of our reasonable demands on pay, pensions, job security and redundancy terms.

In the absence of any further, meaningful talks, the union’s strike action is significantly escalating with more sustained strikes in targeted areas and another all-out strike on 28 April.

Mark Serwotka pointed out to Jeremy Quin that the government is continuing to treat the civil service worse than any other part of the public sector, when talks and potential settlements are happening in health and education, but not for the government’s own workforce.

He says in his letter: “You have the capability to prevent it [the disruption] by sitting down with PCS and working out a settlement. When we met, you led us to believe, as have your officials in the weeks since then, that serious negotiations to resolve this dispute would take place but, weeks later, they still have not begun.

“The level of industrial action in the civil service reflects the strength of feeling amongst PCS members on the issues in dispute and the suffering caused by the cost of living crisis that they are facing. These are hard-working public servants who helped carry this country through a pandemic and they deserve to be treated fairly.”