CIVIL SERVANTS forced to cover for striking colleagues might themselves be balloted for industrial action, their union has announced.

Under current contracts, Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union members working for HM Revenue & Customs “surge and rapid response teams” (SRTT) can be ordered to work in other government departments.

The union, which is currently embroiled in an increasingly bitter six-month national dispute over pay, pensions, redundancies and job security, has repeatedly warned that the tactic is being used by Tory ministers and employers to undermine its democratically endorsed walkouts.

In recent strikes, surge and response team members have been deployed across HMRC, Border Force and the Passport Office, which completed a five-week walkout earlier this month.

But delegates at the union’s annual conference in Brighton voted on Wednesday evening to seek an end to the practice, including a possible ballot of SSRT workers themselves. 

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka welcomed the vote, saying: “Our SRTT members were initially hired to handle sudden work surges in various areas, but they’re now being assigned to strike-breaking roles, often against their own will and conscience.

“Not only are they being used to undermine their own colleague’s strikes, but they are not always trained to fulfil the specialised nature of the work they’re being given.

“As we saw with soldiers being trained to break the Border Force strike, the government seeks all ways to mitigate the impact of our members’ strikes apart from the one way that would succeed — putting money on the table.”

Despite months of intermittent walkouts across more than 100 employers and a massive national strike of 100,000 civil servants on February 1, “not a minute of negotiations have taken place” with ministers, the union has charged.