100,000 civil servants to go on strike over pay

Around 100,000 civil servants are to strike on 1 February, the Public and Commercial Services union has announced.

Union members in 124 government departments along with several other bodies will walk out.

The action is an escalation of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

PCS has been calling for a 10% pay rise, better pensions, job security and no cuts to redundancy terms.

It said a further 33,000 union members in five more government departments, including HMRC, are re-balloting next week to join the strike action.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, said if a meeting with Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin led to the government putting "some money on the table" there was a "chance" the dispute could be resolved.

"If he doesn't, then he'll see public services from benefits to driving tests, from passports to driving licences, from ports to airports affected by industrial action," he said.

"We warned the government our dispute would escalate if they did not listen - and we're as good as our word."

The PCS union represents workers employed by several British government departments.

But it also represents thousands of others in organisations such as Ofsted, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and the DVLA.