Hundreds of Job Centre security guards set to walk out with Hull workers joining the picket over pay

Deborah Hall
·1-min read
G4S workers outside Hull's Ferensway Job Centre during a strike over pay on Wednesday, May 8
-Credit: (Image: LDRS)


Hundreds of Job Centre security guards, including those working at Hull’s Britannia House, are planning to walk out tomorrow.

The guards are set to join wider Yorkshire and North East action, with strikes due to take place on Friday (June 21) and Saturday. The walkouts are part of week-long industrial action in which more than 1,400 guards across the UK will strike in anger at pay rates, says the GMB union.

The action follows days of protests in Hull last month when local Job Centre security guards joined more than 1,000 in a walkout over “disgraceful” pay. The action came amid claims of abuse they faced , including being spat at and kicked while at work, while earning minimum wages.

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Ninety per cent of the security guards, employed by G4S, are now paid just the minimum wage, despite regularly facing attacks and abuse at work, the GMB has said. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has handed G4S £211m to run security at Job Centres, despite employment costs being just £161m during the same period.

Eamon O’Hearn, GMB national officer, said: “Job Centre security guards are punched, attacked and savaged in the neck by dogs – just for carrying out their duties. Yet 90 per cent of them struggle to get by on the minimum wage, while G4S trouser millions from the DWP.

“It’s abhorrent and these strikes will keep escalating unless G4S agrees to pay them a wage they can live on.”

Guards at Britannia House, in Ferensway, Hull, will be joined in taking action by staff elsewhere in Yorkshire, including York, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. The walkouts will also take place in Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

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