By Claire Warrender and Jack McKeown

JOBCENTRES AND social security offices in Fife and Dundee will close for two days next week, unless last ditch pay talks avert strike action by civil servants.

Over 1000 local members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) look set to walk out along with 9000 other Scottish staff next Thursday and Friday in protest at a “discriminatory and derisory” pay offer.

Services hit would include payments of social security benefits, the work done by JobCentre staff, advice provided to pensioners on claiming benefits, and Child Support Agency work.

The action will cause “massive disruption,” said PCS branch secretary for Tayside Ali Arnott.

Mr Arnott said he expected to see all of Dundee’s Jobcentre Plus branches shut down.

There are 600 staff working at Jobcentre Plus branches in Dundee and according to Mr Arnott 90% of them are union members.

“I think there will be massive disruption to the city offices.

“Our intention is to show support for the action against the Government’s intransigence in refusing to agree to a fair pay deal.

“Unfortunately, there will be a bit of public disruption but it is not our intention to cause people problems and we did not want it to come to this.”

The Dundee Pension Centre is also expected to suffer from the industrial action.

However, the Department of Work and Pensions said yesterday that it was too early to tell if industrial action would cause the closures of Jobcentre Plus and other civil service offices in Dundee.

The Dundee Claverhouse branch of the PCS also released a statement last night saying that they had been left with no other option but to take industrial action.

Phil Reilly, chairman of the branch’s strike committee, said they intended to keep any disruption to a minimum and pointed out that for many civil servants, their pay was so low they also needed income support.

“It is the intention of PCS Claverhouse to minimise the disruption to our pensioners,” said Mr Reilly.

“It is not our aim to force people reliant on benefits to go without and to this effect have targeted days when few of our customers are due to receive benefit.

“A significant number of staff in Dundee Pension Centre are themselves reliant on benefits due to low pay and, in some cases, only receive marginally above the minimum wage.

“Other staff have no option but to work a six or seven day week or overtime in order to make ends meet.”

Fife branch secretary Brian Nairn said members had voted for industrial action as a last resort and appreciated members of the public would be affected.

He added however, “Management have failed to see this is a paltry offer and that the lowest paid workers are only just above the minimum wage.”

The union claimed the pay offer includes the introduction of a discriminatory bonus scheme which penalises women for taking maternity leave, staff seeking to gain new skills through study leave and even those in the TA serving in Iraq.

In addition, members say they have been offered a below-inflation pay rise of 2.6%, equating to an increase of less than £1 a day after tax and national insurance contributions.

The union also warned that the imposition of what it described as the worst pay offer in a decade was not only provocative, but did nothing to address low pay in a department where 10,000 staff earned less than £10,000.

PCS Scottish secretary Eddie Reilly said, “All our low paid members are seeking is a properly negotiated pay offer of at least the level of inflation plus more to deal with the endemic problem of low pay in the civil service.

“The current pay offers have been vindictively imposed by a Government pay policy which is seeking to drive down civil service pay even further in these departments.

“We will continue to seek a solution through dialogue but the imposition of these, pay offers has created massive anger amongst our membership in these departments and strike action now seems inevitable.”

UK wide it is expected more than 100,000 civil servants could be on strike.

Workers in the DWP, Home Office, Prison Service, Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Treasury Solicitors voted in separate ballots to take industrial action, with majorities ranging from 54% to 63%.

The DWP said fewer than 22,000 out of its 136,000 staff had voted for strikes, adding, “It is common sense that this is not a sound basis on which to take action and risk disrupting services to some of the most needy people in our society.

“The DWP has made a good pay offer, worth an average of 5% with some staff getting as much as 8%.

“Like all employers there is a limit to what we can spend on pay increases. We are happy to talk to the unions about the shape of the offer and this is the right way forward.

“If some people decide to take strike action it will be a priority to ensure disruption to customers is minimised and people who rely on payments continue to receive them. We are confident we can run a near normal service.” The DWP said that only 16% of its staff were prepared to strike.

The union will meet management today and hopes to receive an improved offer, otherwise the strike will go ahead as planned.