Top civil servants are preparing to strike for the first time in more than 20 years in protest at government plans to curtail their pension entitlement, their union said yesterday.
About 13,000 senior Whitehall managers, tax inspectors, diplomats, government lawyers and others are being balloted about a strike on March 23 to persuade the government to negotiate on its plans to raise the retirement age to 65 and phase out the final salary pension scheme.
The action has been called by the FDA, formerly known as the First Division Association, which last brought its members out on strike in 1984 in a protest about the withdrawal of union rights at the GCHQ intelligence centre.
This time the mandarins' strike is due to coincide with a one-day walkout by more than 1 million council workers and civil servants who are concerned that the government is rewriting their terms of employment without negotiation.
Members of other unions, including Unison and the Transport and General Workers' Union, started voting on Monday on a ballot to strike.
Jonathan Baume, FDA general secretary, said: "Members joined the civil service with a clear understanding of their pension entitlements, which they pay for through monthly contributions and by accepting lower salaries. The government is in danger of tearing up the moral contract with senior managers at the very time that they are expected to lead the government's ambitious programme of public sector reform."
The union's members include crown prosecutors, NHS managers, economists, statisticians, accountants and policy advisers.
Mr Baume said they wanted to persuade the government to enter into negotiations about pension reform.
