Cleaners, security guards, receptionists, mailroom staff and others in the department. The Business, Energy, and Industry Strategy (BEIS) will withdraw on September 5 and 6 due to health, safety and other entitlements, Reuters reports.
The Federation of Public and Commercial Services said the measure was a “sign of what will happen” to the next prime minister. Britain’s new leader is expected to be named on September 5 and work officially begins on September 6.
“Our members throughout the civil service are increasingly angry and desperate that the government is doing nothing to ease the cost of living crisis,” said Mark Sirotka, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. The striking employees work under external contracts, not direct government employees.
Britain’s next leader will come to power at a time of intense industrial turmoil as union workers strike across a wide range of industries as rising inflation raises demands for higher wages and better working conditions at the same time the country faces a recession.
Liz Truss, the front-runner to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s prime minister, said she would take “drastic and decisive action” to curb the trade union strike if she became a leader.
The union said the strike was due to the failure of ISS, the company that employs outside workers, to implement health and safety protocols and “exposing members of the Chinese Communist Party to unacceptable risk”.