Tomorrow (6th March) at 07.00am union members of the PCS working in the 19 Rescue Centres around the country will walkout in a dispute over their pay. This walkout will last for 24 hours and is the first strike ever to affect the Coastguard Service.
The decision by the staff has not come easily and comes after two years of talks, which has seen little progress.
Basically most staff in the centres are paid £4000 less than colleagues in the other emergency services, some only just scrape in over the national minimum wage. These staff work 12 hour shifts and at times the work is highly pressured, for example a mayday or a 999 call or even running an incident like the Napoli!
The industrial action only affects the rescue centres, COASTGUARD RESCUE TEAMS will still be on call as will our colleagues in the Lifeboats and helicopters.
Locally we have plans in place to liaise together should anyone require us, so the public should continue to use the 999 system in the normal way, your call will be directed to a special centre and answered by Coastguards who will pass it on to local teams to deal with.
We all hope that this action will be resolved as soon as possible with all parties getting around the table again soon.
REMEMBER ITS BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR US , IF YOU SEE SOMEONE IN TROUBLE DIAL 999 AND ASK FOR THE COASTGUARD.
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