More than 20,000 Northern Ireland civil servants are to be balloted on staging an all-out indefinite strike in the New Year, it was announced today.
Northern Ireland's biggest public service union, Nipsa, announced plans to undertake a full statutory strike ballot in January in a dispute over pay.
If strike action goes ahead it could cripple the workings of government in the North. All civil servants employed in government departments below the Senior Civil Service grades will be balloted.
Union general secretary John Corey said civil servants were incensed by a 2005 pay offer which gave the majority of staff only a 0.2 per cent increase in pay rates.
Mr Cory said: "Over the last month we have undertaken an extensive consultation with the union's branches on the insulting pay offer. "For thousands of low paid, hard working civil servants, this offer provided only a 50p gross increase a week."
Nipsa confirmed its consultation with members had resulted in 98 per cent voting against the pay offer and an "unprecedented" 74 per cent voting in support of a ballot going ahead for an all-out strike.
Mr Corey said said senior civil service management had been warned time and again that a pay offer which devalued civil service pay rates again was grossly unfair and not sustainable.
PA