Civil servants in Luton will strike tomorrow (May 5) as they protest against cuts to pay, pensions, jobs and their working conditions.
Jobcentre and benefit office staff from the Department for Work and Pensions in Guildford Street will join tax workers from HM Revenue and Customs in George Street West for the strike.
These joint strikes form part of the union’s three-month civil service-wide campaign which has involved weeks of industrial action among the union’s 250,000 public sector members since a national walkout on budget day on March 20.
PCS London and south east regional secretary Andy Thomas said: “Like their colleagues across the civil service, our members who work in these two key departments refuse to sit back and allow the government to impose cuts to their living standards, their jobs and the vital services they provide to the public.”
Campaigners say successive years of cuts in HMRC have left the department unable to properly tackle the estimated £120 billion lost every year through tax evasion, avoidance and non-collection.
DWP has cut 20,000 staff since May 2010 and the government is now threatening to cut even more support for people entitled to benefits.
The union has previously announced it will hold a fresh national civil service-wide strike towards the end of June if the government continues to refuse to negotiate.