Labour Research February 2012

Union news

PCS and Unite

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS civil service union, has made clear he is interested in closer relations with the UK’s largest union, Unite, in an interview with the Financial Times last month.

While there are no formal merger talks going on, the two unions signed a cooperation deal last year and Serwotka said he wanted an “ever closer developing relationship”.

The two unions are among those resisting the government’s pensions plans for the civil service and may take further industrial action.

PCS has just under 300,000 members and Unite around 1.5 million.