Civil Service Workers Step Up Resistance To Return To Office
The debate over the return to the office continues, with thousands of UK government staff voting for industrial action over return-to-office plans.
Just under 4,000 staffers at the Public and Commercial Services Union voted to work to rule — not covering the work of absent colleagues or taking on work outside of their job descriptions — beginning 21 January, Civil Service World reported. Union members work at 14 UK offices of the Land Registry, which registers home and property purchases across the country.
The vote came the same week that JPMorgan Chase said all staff will need to go back to the office full time and ad agency WPP mandated four in-person days a week.
Full-time Land Registry staff had been told they needed to come to the office at least 60% of the time, the equivalent of three days a week. The union said the changes were implemented without the agreement of its members.
“We call on management to work with us to find a solution that’s fair and acceptable to our members,” PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote said. “It would cost them nothing and might help Land Registry regain some of the goodwill required to make progress in clearing the huge backlogs of work.”
The vote marks the latest return-to-office industrial action from workers in the public sector.
Office for National Statistics workers, who are members of PCS, also voted for strike action over office attendance policies, and union members at the Metropolitan Police will take a similar vote this week.
