Top civil servants threaten strike over pension changes

8 Sep 11
The FDA and Prospect unions are to ballot on industrial action this autumn if the government does not rescind the proposed increase in civil servants’ pension contributions from April 2012.
By Mark Smulian | 8 September 2011

The FDA and Prospect unions are to ballot on industrial action this autumn if the government does not rescind the proposed increase in civil servants’ pension contributions from April 2012. Civil servants could go on strike this autumn over proposed pension changes. Teaching staff took industrial action over the changes in June. Photo: PA


Both unions, which represent senior and specialist civil servants, said they would work closely with other public sector unions on the issue. They warned that 54,000 public servants could take part.

In June, thousands of teachers, lecturers, job centre workers and other civil servants took strike action over the government’s proposed changes to their pensions. Health unions have also formed a campaign group to examine possible industrial action.

Ministers want to increase employee pension contributions by an average of 3.2 percentage points by 2014/15. The unions say this would be ‘simply a tax on civil servants and other public sector workers, and has nothing to do with the sustainability of their pension schemes’.

In a joint statement by the general secretaries, Prospect’s Paul Noon and the FDA’s Jonathan Baume said pension reform could ‘not be separated from the overall reward package, and must be considered alongside reform of civil service pay arrangements’.

They added: ‘Unfortunately, the government seems unwilling to consider these issues as a whole and engage constructively. Our members are being asked to pay too high a price for the failings of others, at a time of high inflation and a two-year pay freeze.’

If the government stuck to its position, Prospect and the FDA would be ‘left with no option but to ask our members to demonstrate their strength of feeling through industrial action, probably later in the autumn’, the general secretaries warned.

They added: ‘We do not take this action lightly. Our members are committed public servants, often paid substantially less than their private sector counterparts [and] withdrawing that service by taking industrial action does not come readily to them’.

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