Outsourced workers at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in East Kilbride are to be balloted by the PCS over strike action in a dispute over pay and conditions.
The move has been prompted by a dispute over pay and what the union claims is a refusal by contractor OCS to provide staff with equal core employment terms to those of their civil service colleagues.
The ballot of cleaners, caterers and facilities staff will run from 16 to 30 August. While the number of staff being balloted is relatively small, at eleven individuals, any strike action would have a significant impact as anyone brought in to cover the work would need to have security clearance, according to the union.
The PCS members employed by OCS at the FCDO’s offices at Abercrombie House in East Kilbride are demanding a minimum pay rate of £15 per hour, contractual sick pay from day one, an increase in annual leave to 30 days and improvements to redundancy terms.
However, OCS has failed to meet the demands. On 6 August, it made a final offer of £12 per hour for frontline staff, a 4% increase for managers and supervisors, the undertaking of an equal pay audit, and the provision of hard copy payslips on request.
OCS took over the contract of the outsourced staff last November, when they were transferred across from another outsourced provider.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Our members in East Kilbride deserve better pay for the essential work they do to keep the FCDO running.”
“OCS, whose profits have recently been boosted by their acquisition of facilities-management company Atalian Servest knows this. Yet despite being able to afford to pay more, they choose not to, and continue to prioritise profits for shareholders over decent wages and employment terms for low paid workers,” she added.
Heathcote called on OCS to “do the decent thing and pay their staff the wages they deserve and end in-work poverty once and for all.”
OCS and the FCDO did not respond to requests from CSW for comment.