You know the squeeze in the public sector is coming to a crunch when workers for an organisation set-up to try to prevent strikes themselves walk out on strike. But that was precisley what happened as conciliators at ACAS took strike action on Friday 11th May.
Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Party
The detrimental changes that ACAS management have been imposing on staff has been compounded by the defeat the government suffered on their charges for tribunal payments. Pickets from the PCS union outside the Leeds office welcomed the court ruling that has led to the scrapping of the fees, but pointed out that this is leading to an unsustainable workload at ACAS as staff who have retired have not been replaced leaving a much larger workload on the shoulders of fewer staff.
Many council workers passing by the pickets who took PCS leaflets commented that they are facing the similar workload problems themselves. As one of the pickets commented “that’s why we needed to do something about it and come out on strike today!”
