Strike against “pack of lies”

Submitted by Daniel_Randall on 23 September, 2004 - 12:00

Workers at Stratford Social Security office, in east London, are to be balloted for indefinite strike action by their union PCS The ballot starts on Wednesday 22 September and the result will be known on by Friday 8 October.

The dispute is over the victimisation of PCS’s East London branch secretary, Charlie McDonald, who works at the office. He faces trumped up charges of serious misconduct, accused of assaulting a manger on a picket line and being abusive to staff who crossed picket lines.

The background to this victimisation is an ongoing and increasingly bitter dispute in the Department for Work and Pensions over pay and about staff reporting.

East London branch official Sue Catten said, “The pay in this place is a travesty. New staff in the lowest grade get paid £10,600 a year for doing a full time job. 1 in 10 DWP staff are entitled to claim benefits as their wages are so low. 90,000 staff in the DWP earn less than £15,000 a year.”

She added, “Charlie is being targeted because he sticks up for these members against the bully boy and bully girl managers. The case against him is a pack of lies. Management should know that if they don’t back off then they will face strikes not only at Stratford but across the three London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney.”

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