Confrontation is looming between United Kingdom Public Servants and the Government after Prime Minister, Boris Johnson (pictured) ordered thousands of Government workers to return to their desks.
This was followed by a letter to all Departments from the head of the Public Service, Alex Chisholm in which he said it was time to “change the default that Civil Servants should work from home, and accelerate the return to the workplace from 1 August”.
This received a quick response from the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which told its members to defy the order.
A spokesperson for the union said the demand was “completely unacceptable”.
“It is not based on our members’ health and safety, or on helping our economy, it is based entirely on political pressure being exerted by some Tory MPs who are demanding that the Civil Service is used as an example to get everybody back to work,” the spokesperson said.
“People should only go back to work when it is safe to do so. Everyone’s health and safety must be the top priority,” they said.
The spokesperson said the union’s advice to members was clear.
“If you are working from home and you get approached by anyone in your Department asking you to now go back to work, don’t just accept that’s what you have to do,” they said.
The row initially blew up when Mr Johnson ordered Public Servants responsible for processing passport applications to return to their desks at the Home Office to deal with a huge backlog.
The lack of officials working in the office has caused millions of pieces of crucial paperwork, including passport applications and birth certificates, to stack up as these can’t be processed remotely.
Mr Johnson then said normal work must resume “as soon as possible” for all Public Servants and told Departments to draw up plans for clearing in-trays by the end of September.
However, the country’s biggest private companies businesses have told hundreds of thousands of office staff to carry on working at home.
Unilever, BT, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rolls-Royce and GlaxoSmithKline are among those who still have no immediate plans to resume office working.
London, 27 July 2020
