Pension staff for the armed forces have begun a five day strike in a row of pay.

 

Workers at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) in Glasgow were offered a rise of just 9p an hour- less than 0.5%- despite the US IT multinational company posting pre-tax profits of more than $1 billion.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) announced that 200 of its members based at the MoD building at Kentigern House on Brown Street in the city centre would go ahead with the five day strike commencing on Monday 20 April.

The union also threatened that the CSC staff, who are mostly ex-Ministry of Defence staff who work as pension administrators and in IT on the MoD contract, will go ahead with further strikes if the company continues to refuse to move.

CSC has previously attracted controversy for its role in the NHS's scrapped National Programme for IT, which prompted the chair of the House of Commons' public accounts committee to describe it in parliament in June 2013 as a "rotten company".

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "It is nothing short of obscene that this billion dollar company is offering staff such an insulting pay increase.

"These workers are proud of the work they do for the armed forces but they are not even being given crumbs from the table by this eye-wateringly profitable US firm."

PCS Glasgow union rep Harold Good has worked with the armed forces pension and pay since 1996 and has been involved in the pay negotiations for two months. He said: "We have been told that's all that's on the table and that there will be no more negotiations. I have tried to have further meetings with the pay negotiators but they have refused.

"It would take much to resolve this and they know that, they know what we want and it's not expecting much.

"What have only had one pay rise since CSC took over in 2012. That was a rise of 1.5% and that was last year. This offer is unacceptable, it is a pot of just £21,000 and they are turning over millions and millions of dollars each year."

Commenting on the current strike action Mr Good said: "CSC were proud of the fact that they had never had any staff going on strike in Scotland. They have had staff strike over pay in the US, throughout Europe and now in Scotland.

"We were on the picket line this morning and the turnout was very good. They were 35 people there and not one PCS member crossed the picket line, everyone was on strike.

"We will be striking everyday this week from 7am until 10:30am and our members will take a vote to decide on any future strikes."