Cabinet Office says national PCS strike turnout lowest ever

The Cabinet Office has estimated that the total number of civil servants that took part in the national strike over pay freezes (as reported by CSW on Wednesday) was 71,210.



 


By Sarah Aston

16 Oct 2014

According to the Cabinet Office, this represented 17.4% of the workforce.

A spokesperson for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) claimed that around three quarters of their members had participated in the strike, a figure that Minister for Cabinet Office Francis Maude has labelled “pure fiction”.

He added: “This is the lowest level of support ever recorded for a national PCS strike,” and personally thanked those civil servants that turned up for work on Wednesday.

 
The strike’s focus was on the 1% cap on pay increases that has followed the two year pay freeze introduced in 2010. The PCS states that by 2015 the average civil servant will have suffered a 20% cut in their real incomes under the coalition.

Maude, however, insists civil servants are valued: “I am consistently impressed by the public service ethos of our Civil Service. Whether it’s Jobcentre workers getting more people into employment than ever before, or my officials helping to save £14.3 billion from Whitehall last year, we all owe our Civil Service a huge debt of gratitude.”

According to the Cabinet Office, Wednesday’s turnout was 6,478 lower than that recorded from the PCS strike in July, which was estimated to have had a turnout of 77,688.

 

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