By Lucy Phillips
19 May 2011
The senior civil servants union has warned it is likely to join collective action against government changes to Whitehall pensions.
Addressing delegates at the FDA’s annual conference today, general secretary Jonathan Baume said if unions failed to reach a settlement with government ‘collective action is likely to be taken in the autumn, and I have little doubt that if action is needed, the FDA will also be balloting our members’.
He added: ‘We are in complex negotiations about serious issues which require a serious and united approach, not gestures.
‘The government can impose change. But ministers also know that they will pay a heavy price if they do. Those affected would include everyone from the Jobcentre Plus worker in Rotherham to a High Court judge in the Strand. There would inevitably be widespread industrial action, and long-term damage to morale and motivation for millions of key public sector workers, with a potentially significant electoral price to pay in 2015.’
Some 240 senior civil servants will debate six motions on pensions and other motions on staffing cuts, pay and employment terms and conditions at the conference in London today.
Yesterday, the annual conference of the Public and Commercial Services union voted in favour of a strike ballot over cuts to pensions, jobs and pay.
Education unions are also asking members to vote on changes to their pensions, bringing the total number of union members being balloted to 750,000.
All the unions are unhappy that the government announced before talks began that it would increase public sector member contributions, change the way pensions were measured and raise the retirement age.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka added: ‘The economic crisis was not caused by our members' jobs, pensions or pay and it is shameful and wrong that the coalition government is attempting to scapegoat them in its bid to slash and burn the welfare state.’
