Jobcentre workers are to be balloted in a move that could lead to industrial action. The move is in response to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) insistence that staff and customers return to jobcentres to deliver face to face services.
Civil service union PCS says that since 12 April, DWP “has been asking considerably more staff to return to jobcentres to carry out face to face interviews with customers. This is despite staff working from home successfully for up to a year, carrying out these interviews by phone.”
The union argues “that coronavirus still poses a threat to safety and that to extend services in jobcentres now is unsafe, and places staff, their families and customers at risk. We are therefore balloting PCS members working in jobcentres to ask if they would be prepared to take industrial action over DWP’s decision.”
The ballot is consultative and a further ballot of members would be required before strike action could take place.
PCS said its demands include “stopping the extension of face to face services, with face to face interviews taking place only with those identified as most vulnerable until the vaccine programme is complete and low rates of infection have been sustained for a significant period.
“We are also asking that DWP sticks to the agreement made in autumn last year, that work coaches can decide how to progress their own workload, including making decisions about how to interview customers.”
The electronic ballot closes on 21 May.