Thousands of civil servants are to strike “indefinitely” following an order to return to the office for three days a week, a move described by a trade union as “Victorian”. The Telegraph has the story.
Nearly 4,000 staff at HM Land Registry, which is responsible for registering the ownership of property in England and Wales, will refuse to cover for colleagues or take on any extra work which they consider to be beyond their job description from January 21st.
The backlash is over a demand to return to the office for three days, a requirement which has been described by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union as “Victorian”.
Fran Heathcote, the General Secretary of the PCS, argued that ditching the office requirement would “cost them nothing” adding that it could “help Land Registry regain some of the goodwill required to make progress in clearing the huge backlogs of work”.
However, the planned industrial action has sparked concern over delays to housing transactions as buyers rush to complete purchases before the stamp duty changes on April 1st. …
A HM Land Registry spokesman said: “We believe this action will cause minimal impact to our services. We will continue to closely monitor any effects the action may have and respond as needed to maintain essential services that support the property market, such as searches, registrations – including expedites – and customer contact, as we did during previous periods of full industrial action.”
Land Registry workers will have to vote on the action again in six months.
Government targets usually require civil servants to go into the office for at least 60% of their contracted hours but civil servants have been fighting back against a recent home working crackdown.
The PCS union – which represents almost 200,000 civil servants across Whitehall – has argued that asking workers to come into the office is unreasonable.
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