DWP Jobcentre warning over incoming change under Labour government
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been struck by a SECURITY strike after PCS members rejected a pay offer under the new Labour Party government. The ballot backed further walkouts at Jobcentres and other departmental sites in a row with outsourcer G4S.
Striking security guards have voted to reject a pay offer tabled by outsourcer G4S. Members of the PCS union who are employed by the security firm on its DWP contract rejected the latest offer by a margin of more than 5:1.
They and backed further industrial action in the dispute even more strongly, the union has said this week. PCS members and their counterparts at the GMB union have been staging strike action at DWP sites for several months in a bid for better pay.
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The GMB suspended its strikes after G4S tabled the latest offer in August. A ballot of its members who work on the DWP contract is due to run until 4 October. G4S's latest pay offer would increase hourly rates to £11.76 for most security staff, which is a 32p uplift on the National Living Wage.
Angela Grant, DWP group president for PCS, said: "It’s high time G4S did the decent thing and offered this group of scandalously low-paid workers a wage they can live on. They should cough up from the huge sums of money they make from the contributions of taxpayers. The government and the DWP need to act now and bring this work in house to stop these profiteers pocketing our money."
Grant said the union will be writing to G4S to pass on the ballot result and inform the contractor of further strike dates. PCS membership has more than trebled during the dispute and members have been holding well-supported picket lines outside jobcentres, many of which have been forced to close during the strike action.