ONS workers vow to continue industrial action
Members of the PCS union are involved in a dispute about office and remote working
Last updated 2nd Apr 2025
Workers at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have voted to continue taking industrial action in a dispute over office attendance.
More than 1,150 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) based in Newport in South Wales, Titchfield in Hampshire, London, Darlington, Manchester and Edinburgh, have been refusing to spend at least 40% of their time in the office.
Their six-month strike mandate ran out at the beginning of April, so the union re-balloted its members and announced a vote in favour of continuing with action, including refusing to work overtime, out of hours and out of grade.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: "This is the third time we've won a ballot in this dispute and participation has increased considerably each time, reflecting the growing resolve among PCS members at ONS to not accept arbitrary office attendance targets.
"These targets do nothing to improve productivity and everything to disrupt the lives of ONS staff.
"This refreshed mandated will allow our members to continue to blend office and homeworking arrangements to best suit the needs of their work and their teams."
A spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics said:
"We regard the continued industrial action as unreasonable given our highly flexible approach to hybrid working, and our ongoing discussions in good faith on this issue.
"Face-to-face interaction helps people to build working relationships and supports collaboration, innovation and learning."
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