The looming threat of a strike by civil servants could see the ‘paralysis of the country’ weeks after the new prime minister takes office.
Unions are laying plans to bring Whitehall to a standstill in a backlash against Boris Johnson’s cull of 91,000 posts.
The mass strikes threaten to dominate his successor’s early months in office and hit them with a ‘winter of discontent’ with less than two years until the next election.
Officials in the Home Office have reportedly already started making contingency measures in case of mass walkouts. A department-wide strike would cause chaos at borders and compound long backlogs for passports and visas.
The looming threat of a strike by civil servants could see the ‘paralysis of the country’ weeks after the new prime minister takes office. Pictured: Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union in 2019
‘I don’t think Rishi or Liz are ready for what they are facing. We are looking at the paralysis of the country,’ one government source told the Daily Telegraph.
Last week more than three quarters of voting members of the ISU, the union for staff working in borders, immigration and customs, indicated their willingness to strike. Ministers believe that other departments will follow suit.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents 190,000 civil servants, have already voted in favour of industrial action in an indicative ballot.
The official ballot for strike action will open on September 26 and will run for six weeks until November 7.
The union is calling for a 10 per cent wage increase, an hourly wage of at least £15 an hour and cuts to pension contributions by staff.
A union source said: ‘Civil servants are really angry about this. It’s in ministers’ power to solve this. They can’t complain about long queues at the passport office while they’re also cutting staff.’
‘I don’t think Rishi or Liz are ready for what they are facing. We are looking at the paralysis of the country,’ one government source said
The union for nurses has threatened a vote on strike action next month and last week rail union bosses threatened to extend walkouts into the Christmas period. Postal workers will strike on Friday, the first of four days of action.
PCS leader Mark Serwotka said: ‘The Civil Service has rarely faced such a huge number of challenges in such a condensed period of time.
‘That it coincides with the cost-of-living crisis just makes it more devastating for our members, whose pay, pensions and redundancy terms are under attack.
‘We are gearing up for a big fight with whoever wins [the race to become prime minister] because we believe the Civil Service needs more resources, not less.’
Senior officials in the Home Office have been conducting meetings to prepare for strikes for more than two months, a source said.
Unions are laying plans to bring Whitehall to a standstill in a backlash against Boris Johnson’s cull of 91,000 posts
The department has used modelling to determine the likely support for strikes and the length of any action.
The current thinking is that staff will walk out between mid-November and May, potentially causing chaos at the borders over the February half-term and over the Easter break. Officials will seek to fill key positions in areas such as Border Force from elsewhere in the department or from the Cabinet Office.
The focus is on the impact on ports and airports, which have been hit by lengthy queues this summer.
A government source said: ‘The unions could use these strikes to hit the new prime minister. I’m sure that will form part of their decision-making.’
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘We are fully committed to our engagement with staff and unions, and are working with unions to minimise any potential disruptions.’