FCA and PSR staff have recently voted to carry out industrial action in the form of strikes followed by continuous working to rule. This is the first time industrial action will be taken in the FCA and PSR’s history.
We represent professionals at every grade, department, and background across the organisation. Our members have years of experience working to protect consumers, mortgage owners, businesses, fight crime and fraud, and keep the UK Financial Sector functioning during Covid and crisis. To most of us, our work is a matter of pride and purpose as much as, if not more than, a matter of salary and compensation.
However, after two years of extraordinary service, staff are now being subject to punishing pay cuts. In implementing this, the FCA have ignored the voice, good will and constructive feedback of staff who share the aims of the organisation.
Staff voices are no longer valued and considered. There is little transparency and reasoning on decisions that affect them, our well-being is no longer central to how we’re treated, and cases of discrimination are becoming all too entrenched and common.
Now staff turnover is dangerously high. Those remaining feel that unfortunately there no other choice but to take industrial action to be heard and secure a fair outcome.
When we strike, we strike for:
- Real staff representation in the form of a recognised Union. The FCA and PSR are some of the only public sector bodies not to have a recognised Union and this has come at a big cost to staff. Our Staff Consultation Committee has done fantastic work during the last six months but they have no powers and almost every recommendation they made on our pay and conditions has been ignored. Give staff the choice to decide how they want to be represented.
- Better pay and conditions. We estimate that over 75% of staff across the FCA and PSR are now experiencing punishing pay cuts. For many these cuts are up to 12% of their salary (not counting inflation) during a cost of living crisis. Where the FCA claim to be giving some staff pay rises, in many cases this has been found to be misleading and in most cases these do not offset inflation. Many won’t see their pay return to 2020 levels until 2025. Some will never come back from this. All the while our colleagues in Edinburgh are now going to be paid less for the same work as colleagues in London with less resources available to them. We believe in equal pay for equal work in line with ‘Levelling Up’.
- Fair Performance Reviews. The FCA judges staff performance (and subsequent pay) against the curve. This has been shown to be discriminatory in theory and in practice. Managers are forced to find 15% of staff as ‘failing’. These are often staff who in fact have served the FCA and consumers admirably during multiple national crises whilst suffering difficult personal circumstances. We ask for staff to be judged for their performance and not for targets.
Can we win?
We wouldn’t be taking this course of action if we didn’t represent a large portion of staff from across the organisation. Branch membership has grown at one of the fastest rates in recent Unite history to become one of the largest branches (by proportion of the workforce) of any comparable public sector body. This is despite the challenges of organising whilst working from home.
We have the backing of Unite, the largest Trade Union in the country, and draw upon a wealth of experience and resource in ensuring our staff are heard and represented. With that backing our staff voted overwhelmingly to strike and carry out further work to rule action.
In doing so we have learned from the actions of other branches in other organisations who had lower membership, lower turnout, and rightly secured the aims of their members.
Our membership is new, engaged, and proud of the work they do. They want to see the FCA succeed in protecting consumers, businesses and fighting financial crime. We share the wider aims of our leadership and want to come round the table to reach a solution and put this dispute behind us.
Our success is the FCA’s success. This means we’re here to win.
The long term:
This industrial action is not just for now, this is to secure a future in which staff are heard, represented and can expect better as new changes and challenges occur.
We want to have an ongoing constructive relationship with FCA leadership, actively consulting staff on the changes that affect them. This has been role modelled across numerous public sector organisations for decades and can be achieved here. Our staff are experts with thousands of years of experience across multiple sectors between us and share the values of the FCA and PSR. We shouldn’t be ignored.
We accept and back the need for change and transformation in order to meet new challenges. However this can only be done successfully with the backing and good will of its staff.
