PCS members forced to strike as they call upon civil service bosses to honour workplace agreements

It's the stuff of satire. Civil service bosses spend days thrashing out a detailed agreement on handling job changes - then bury it in a dusty filing cabinet, shove it in a basement, and conveniently 'lose' it the moment workers need it. 

TUC LESE visited the picket line protest at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the first day of strike action by PCS members, 16 July. More strike action followed 22 July, when TUC LESE visited again, and then on 23, 29 and 30 July, and members also began action short of strike action.

The dispute centres on the FCDO's 2030 restructuring programme that proposes significant workforce reductions, potentially cutting up to 2,000 UK based jobs, a 15-25 percent reduction. Very serious stuff. 

PCS sought a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, meaningful consultation with unions, updated equality impact assessments and compliance with established civil service redundancy agreements. 

But following talks with the permanent under-secretary and senior HR officials on 7 July, PCS concluded that management was unwilling to provide the necessary commitments and so it served notice of industrial action. 

Why is this unnecessary? Why is this nonsense? 

Because in 2016 the Cabinet Office published a Protocol that codified the principles and practices of restructuring and redundancy in the civil service. Eight pages, 50 points, the outcome of detailed consultation and negotiation with unions.

And so, PCS members have, quite outrageously, held the document aloft and asked for it to be applied. And PCS members have, with equal incredulity, wondered whether the Cabinet Office is asleep on the on the job because clause 11 of the Protocol says the Cabinet Office will ‘Maintain a strategic overview of and compliance on the use of the Protocol’. 

Maintaining effective industrial relations is often complex, but it is usually a lot easier if employers follow the workplace agreements they have signed up to. Workplace agreements must carry real weight and cannot be for display use only. With apologies to Shakespeare, “We cannot make a scarecrow of workplace agreements”. 

TUC LESE is proud to visit picket lines and offer solidarity, and we are always keen to learn more about a dispute from reps and members. So, we were pleased to get the inside track on this dispute and to alert the national TUC’s lead on public services to facilitate some back-channel conversations at high-level. 

The dispute continues.