Coastguard staff strike over pay
26 August 2008 - 13:00
About 700 coastguard staff around the UK are continuing their 48-hour walkout over pay.
The office-based rescue co-ordinators are angry they are paid less than other emergency services.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said rescue workers would be unaffected by the stoppage.
Coastguards say the strike did not contribute to the death of a woman pulled from the sea off the Lancashire coast on Saturday.
Extra care
A man is in a serious condition in hospital after he and the woman were taken from the water at Blackpool Promenade in the early hours of Saturday morning.
In a separate incident during the walkout, two men were rescued on the Isle of Bute in Scotland after their small inflatable vessel broke down in rough seas.
The MCA has urged people to take extra care on the sea, beach or cliffs.
About 700 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) began their walkout on Saturday and will return to work on Monday evening.
The Bank Holiday weekend strike follows five days of industrial action earlier this year at the UK's rescue co-ordination centres.
The PCS claims staff have experienced real-terms pay cuts, with pay rises averaging 2.5% for most staff, and less than 1% for senior personnel.
Staff want a rise of £3,000 on their current base salary of about £12,500 a year.
'Had enough'
Paul Smith of the Public and Commercial Services Union said that staff in the operations rooms were earning just above the national minimum wage.
"The salaries our members earn in the Coastguard Agency are significantly behind those within the other emergency services," he said.
"The jobs our members do is highly responsible, highly trained and frankly they've had enough because they see the writing on the wall unless this issue is properly addressed."
The PCS said strike action could have been avoided if the government and MCA had negotiated "a satisfactory outcome".
On what was expected to be one of the busiest weekends at sea, the MCA said contingency arrangements had been put in place to ensure that it continued to provide an emergency service.
MCA chief executive Peter Cardy said "normal service" would be unaffected.
Rescue helicopters, Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) boats would continue to operate and volunteer coastguard rescue officers would be ready, the agency added.
