Outsourced public sector ICT professionals to strike?

Public sector unions, which number ICT professionals in some cases, are to launch what could be a rolling programme of industrial action over the summer.

The first such could include as many as 750,000 public servants, including teachers, and is set for June 30.

The end of June walk-out will be followed by further disruption, such as a month long ban on overtime, work to rule and other measures.

The unions lining up for the action include civil service union the PCS, NHS and Town Hall body UNISON, Unite, and various university and teaching staff groups.

The unions object to current government positions on pensions, jobs and pay, though critics, including employers, have already seized on low turnouts justifying the action (though the bodies themselves argue that is balanced by the very high strike-vote ratios).

PCS, for instance, argues that the Coalition's "slash and burn" approach to tackling the budget deficit will mean "vital public services are axed, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers will be thrown out of work, and those that remain will have their pay and pensions cut".

"The government admits that money cut from pensions will go straight to the Treasury to help pay off the deficit in what is nothing more than a tax on working in the public sector. The very modest pay and pensions of public servants did not cause the recession, so they should not be blamed or punished for it," it said in a statement.

"Unless ministers abandon their ideological plans to hollow out the public sector, they will face industrial action on a mass scale on 30 June and beyond."