Pay Strike Hits Scotland

Scottish civil servants in UK-wide pre-referendum pay strike.

Almost 28,000 civil servants in Scotland will be part of the 1.5 million-strong strike over pay throughout the UK today.

Following a 73.7% yes vote in a national consultative ballot PCS members, including Scottish and UK government workers voted overwhelmingly to back "We all need a pay rise campaign.'  The PCS National Executive Committee met last week and confirmed PCS members across the UK will take strike action today. This includes staff of the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament as well as devolved areas covered by Scottish Ministers pay policy.

The strike will be the biggest since the pensions' dispute, which saw the first joint union walkout on 30 June 2011 and led to the mass strike on 30 November of that year.

The union has an existing industrial action mandate covering pay, pensions, jobs and privatisation but three in four voted in favour of further strikes in a consultative ballot that closed on 30 June.

Alongside any action co-ordinated with other unions, PCS is also planning a campaign of sustained targetted industrial action across the civil service and launching a voluntary levy of its members to build up a fighting fund.

The union is calling on UK Ministers and senior officials to hold negotiations over the issues under dispute, and for Scottish Ministers to break with the imposed UK austerity pay cap on its own workforce in the run up to the referendum on Scottish independence.

A pay calculator set up by the union on its website shows government pay and pension policies have cut up to 20% in real-term earnings over the course of the pay freeze and cap.

Here's PCS Scottish secretary Lynn Henderson.