Last-minute talks bid to halt first Bank of England strike in nearly 40 years

The Bank of England will hold last-ditch talks with the UK’s largest trade union on Monday as the central bank attempts to avert its first strike in nearly 40 years.

The stoppage has been called over a below-inflation pay offer to the Bank’s maintenance, security and hospitality staff, and was originally due to begin on Monday. However, the action has been delayed for a day to allow late talks via the conciliation service, Acas, and is now scheduled to last between Tuesday and Thursday if talks fail.

Protesters are planning to gather outside the Bank’s headquarters in Threadneedle Street, in the heart of the City of London, on Tuesday wearing masks of Governor Mark Carney and holding placards and flags stating: “Bank of England staff want fair pay.”

There has never been a strike at the Bank’s headquarters, with the last industrial action affecting the central bank taking place at its printing plant in Essex in the late 1960s.

The Unite union said the dispute was caused by the imposition of a 1% increase in the pay pot for the year from March.

The union argues the amount an individual would receive was at the discretion of line managers, so that employees could receive less than 1% and some no rise at all. It balloted 84 members, of whom 95% voted for the strike.

Although the action involves less than 2% of the Bank’s 4,000-strong workforce, the union has said the threatened strike would make the institution “effectively inoperable”.

The Bank said: “The Union balloted approximately 2% of the workforce. Should the strike go ahead, the Bank has plans in place so that all sites can continue to operate effectively. We will continue to have discussions with Unite and hope that there will be a positive outcome.”

Unite, which describes the pay offer as “derisory”, said: “Staff are angry that the bank has imposed a below inflation pay offer for the second year running. In a gesture of goodwill by the union the start of the strike has been postponed for one day in order to allow for last minute talks to take place at Acas.”

The industrial action is scheduled during a busy week for the governor. He will chair a meeting of the monetary policy committee, at which interest rates are expected to be left unchanged at their record low of 0.25%, and on Thursday is due to present the Bank’s inflation report.

The inflation report will contain the Bank’s latest economic forecasts. Marc Ostwald of ADM Investor Services says they will come amid “broadening signs of a significant loss of momentum in the economy, in no small part due to Brexit-related uncertainties”.